Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
Athanasian creed is widely used in Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
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Evangelical, that's not true. Why do you often speak of the things that you don't know? You just show how little you read about the Orthodox Church and her teachings.
The Orthodox Church has never used the Athanasian creed. (Even Wikipedia knows that). Here is the Creed we use:
The Confession of our Faith
(The Nicene Creed)
I believe in One God, Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not created, of one essence with the Father, through whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary and became Man. He was crucified for our salvation under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried. And he rose on the third day, according to the Scriptures. He ascended into Heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father. And He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. His Kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Creator of Life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets. In one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the ages to come. Amen.
As for salvation, in Orthodoxy, salvation is a process, not a once-and-done event. It is the process of our union with God. Orthodox Christianity understands that we are “being saved,” not “already saved.”
One doesn't need to know much to be saved. But you need to establish a union with Christ. Yes, we are saved by faith. But the faith must be active, not mental. Active faith is synergy, cooperation with God, through prayer, repentance, humility, the Holy Sacraments of the Church, reading the Scriptures, fulfilling the Gospel commandments, and spiritual warfare against our passions.
There is a difference between the active, living faith and mental, demonic, dead faith. Demons have all the intellectual knowledge and information about the dogmas but still stay demons. They don't have a union with God because they are doing nothing to establish this union. They have knowledge but reject Christ. That's the difference between "to know about God" and "to know God". "To know about God" means to have an information about Him. "To know God" means to share His life, to be in union with God.
From my experience, the teaching of WL is that dry knowledge about God. This mental faith can hardly help to know God. Why?.. For several reasons. As the Fathers say, "wrong spiritual life begets wrong theology." The wrong spiritual life leads man into a delusion. Such a man, with the heart full of passions, starts to think that he is the chosen one who knows the faith better than others. Probably, he even thinks that he got a revelation from God. That's how many sects and cults started. No wonder so many herodox reject orthodox teachings of the early Church. But how can one have a union with the Trinity when he or she is promoting a wrong teaching about the Trinity? A delusion about God is still a delusion. It cannot help to establish a union with the real God. Cult members delude themselves thinking that they worship the God while they are worshipping the image, fantasy which they created. In other words, they worship a false image of God.
Can a Muslim be saved? I don't know. It is for God to decide. But for a Muslim, to establish a union with God, -- it must be a pretty hard thing to do because Muslim teachings about God are false. Muslims don't worship the Holy Trinity. They worship a false image of God, according to Muhammad's imagination and understanding. It is the same with Jehovah's Witness. Again, it must be very hard to have a union with the Holy Trinity if you reject the Trinity and worship a false image of God.
Evangelical, dear brother, If I am not mistaken, you are promoting a modification of Modalism, a heresy that was condemned by the early Church. Thus, it wasn't original Witness Lee's understanding of God. WL really "recovered" something ancient. Unfortunately, this ancient "recovery" is just another false image of God.
Modalism/Sabellianism: Belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three characterizations of one God, rather than three distinct "persons" in one God. First formally stated by Noetus of Smyrna c.190, refined by Sabellius c.210 who applied the names merely to different roles of God in the history and economy of salvation. Noetus was condemned by the presbyters of Smyrna. Tertullian wrote Adversus Praxeam against this tendency and Sabellius was condemned by Pope Callistus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...stian_heresies
Cyprian wrote - "...how, when God the Father is not known, nay, is even blasphemed, can they who among the heretics are said to be baptized in the name of Christ, be judged to have obtained the remission of sins?
Hippolytus (A.D. 170–236) referred to them - "And some of these assent to the heresy of the Noetians, and affirm that the Father himself is the Son..."
Pope Dionysius, Bishop of Rome from A.D. 259–269 wrote - "Sabellius...blasphemes in saying that the Son Himself is the Father and vice versa."
Tertullian states - "He commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, not into a unipersonal God. And indeed it is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed into three persons, at each several mention of their names.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabellianism
I might be mistaken but from my point of view, we cannot rely on our or modern teachers' understanding of the Holy Trinity. We may end up worshipping a false image of God, not the God Who revealed Himself in the Holy Scripture. The only orthodox understanding of the Holy Trinity is the understanding of the early Church. I believe so, because I don't think that I, WL or any modern pastor or professor can understand the Christian faith and Christian dogmas better than the early Christians.
God bless.