Luther argued in his Bondage of the Will that in matters of salvation, the human will has no choice. It is either enslaved to evil or it is enslaved to salvation. The determining factor is faith in Christ which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in us whenever we hear the Word of Christ.
I’ve never been sure what he meant to say, Gramps49. The implication is somewhat similar to Calvin on predestination, yet he seems also to be arguing that there is choice, at least from the human side if not God’s.
I don’t like predestination any more than I like philosophical determinism. Personal responsibility predicates freedom to choose well or badly. As I see it. I’ve read some rationalisations but did not find them convincing.
I think the Russian philosopher and Christian, Berdyaev, did a much better job in defending the essential importance of free will, and freedom of choice. I might dig out some references later.
Well, Luther is out of synch with the Orthodox on that one, bless him.*
I don't see what his late Scholastic/Augustinian speculations have to do with the divinity of Christ, the subject of this thread. Luther or no Luther it is Christ who saves. Salvation is Christ.
I've not read his Bondage Of The Will but imagine it is best understood in the context of polemics between the RCs and Regormers in 16th century Western Europe. Nowt to do with us ...
Not that we aren't aware of those controversies and debates of course, it's just that they only apply to a particular historical context and set of controversies that were someone else's fight not ours.
Luther can say what he likes about the human will. It's got nothing to do with me other than academic interest. Our salvation doesn't depend on what Luther taught or thought.
*Not that we believe that we can save ourselves, of course.
I don't mean this flippantly but one of the great blessings of being Orthodox is that the whole freewill / predestination thing is something of a non-issue. I wasted hours in my yoof arguing and debating about that one.
It really isn't a big deal to us and I can't get exercised about it any more. I hope I don't sound like a Philistine but I really have no interest whatsoever in reading Luther on this issue. I'd rather laugh at his fart gags.
Calvin's Institutes are all very worthy but I didn't quite reach the end. Not that the Fathers are always a scintillating read either and there are huge gaps in my knowledge and understanding there.
If I were still a Protestant then yes, the writings of Luther and Calvin would certainly be of interest but with the best will in the world they no longer apply to me and if I did read them it'd only be out of curiosity and academic interest. That isn't to say that they don't have value or don't 'ring true' on certain points. Of course they do.
It doesn't mean that I'm not interested in the Churches they've influenced and what they do in terms of mission, teaching and ministry etc. I'm always up for hearing about things like that.
Freedom is fundamental and comes before all. Without it there can be no creativity. Without freedom all is mechanical and dead. There could be no love, no goodness, no friendship, and no meaning.
Anyone compelled to act is responsible neither for the good nor the evil that he causes through his actions.
Creativity requires agency. An agent is a center of consciousness, of decision-making, embodying intentionality and purpose. Determinism removes agency from the individual and effectively ascribes it to the Big Bang or the laws of nature, making human agency an illusion. Determinism reduces humans to the steel balls in a pinball machine that have no control over the spring-loaded mechanism that starts the ball’s journey around the machine, nor are there paddles that can be manipulated to alter the ball’s trajectory once the trip has begun.
Freedom is the alternative to nihilism.
That’s a typical Berdyaev quote which I found on line by googling. I think that quote is superb.
I think he was Russian Orthodox. At any rate he was much admired by the Russian Orthodox Priest Alexander Men (who was in turn admired by me). Men, who was a victim of political assassination, wrote some tremendous stuff about the Christian faith.
"Enslaved to salvation"--eh, putting it that way isn't maybe the most helpful. I think the standard way of saying it is that if I'm saved, it's all God's doing and his credit, but if I'm lost, it's my own damn fault. To unpack that a little, we're saved by Jesus' gracious, self-giving work, which is applied to us personally by the Holy Spirit who creates faith in our hearts. That's why God gets the credit. We aren't contributing to our salvation by anything we do, the only thing we bring to that is our sins!
On the other hand, nobody is going to be able to stand there on the Last Day and say, "God, it's your fault that I'm shut out of the Kingdom." That's on us.
Yes, of course this looks illogical. It is nevertheless what we see in the Scriptures. If logic doesn't fit well with that, Lutherans say, so much the worse for logic.
Sorry for the triple post but this is definitely worth adding. One of the most profound verses in the Book of Galatians, indeed in all of the letters in the New Testament is this one.
Galatians 5:1
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Freedom is fundamental and comes before all. Without it there can be no creativity. Without freedom all is mechanical and dead. There could be no love, no goodness, no friendship, and no meaning.
Anyone compelled to act is responsible neither for the good nor the evil that he causes through his actions.
That’s a typical Berdyaev quote which I found on line by googling. I think that quote is superb.
There's two forms of determinism and I think that only addresses one. That one I think we might call ontic determinism - it holds that everything in existence operates mechanically according to impersonal laws, so that in theory human actions could be described without reference to psychological concepts. The other we might call psychological determinism: that would hold that one's actions are sufficiently determined by one's psychological state and character. So that if eg someone loves their children there's no possibility of them murdering their children for the sake of it. That view might say that being able to do anything, regardless of one's values and character and commitments, wouldn't be freedom but would be subjection to random whim.
I suspect there's a problem here in our ability to conceptualise what freedom means.
These days I'm a 'synergist' rather than a 'monergist' as it were, of course. That's Orthodox soteriology and yes, we believe that's what the scriptures teach and why we don't bend over backwards trying to reconcile passages in Romans with apparently contradictory ones in the Epistle of James.
That's a Rome vs the Reformers issue.
It doesn't mean that we take credit or deprive God of the glory and set up false dichotomies here, there and everywhere.
'Help us, save us, have mercy on us and keep us, O God, by Thy grace.'
The Orthodox do believe in predestination. It's in the scriptures. But we don't speculate as to how it all works. None of us can get under the bonnet (the hood) and work out the mechanics as to how divine grace and human responsibility works.
Whatever the relative detail and merits or demerits of their respective schemas, both Lutheran and Calvinist approaches - even bearing in mind that there are moderate versions of both - appear very 'Scholastic' and speculative to us. An Orthodox reading of scripture is less prescriptive on these matters than what I understand of the Reformed and the Lutheran approaches.
That doesn't mean that those approaches lack nuance or aren't thought through rigorously. But from our perspective they are overdone - over-egged to use a phrase I over use.
I'm sure Luther was laying things on thickly to make a point and to correct what he felt were imbalances on the side of the Humanists like Erasmus. That's as may be.
There are potential imbalances on all sides. @Gramps49 related the story of the Norwegian Lutheran pastor who thanked God on his death bed that he had not performed any 'good works.'
Equally, I'm sure there are Orthodox who go round thinking that they'll be saved by observing every microscopic liturgical detail to the nth degree.
Or, as I've heard it said about some rural Greeks, that they think only Greeks can be Christians.
Tough luck if you are Korean, Australian, Russian, South African, British, Madagascan or whatever else.
Anyhow, we are getting into soteriology now rather than sticking with the theme of the Divinity of Christ. But then, if Christ were not Divine we could not be saved.
And before anyone puts a shot across my bows, in Orthodox soteriology divine grace always precedes any human response.
We tend not to systematise this stuff in the way that some Western Christians do. We are, however closer yo some Anabaptist groups and to the Wesleyan Methodists in our views on these matters.
For my own part, I've had to adjust my thinking a fair bit but tend not to 'over-think' it all. I have a tendency to do that.
But I've got enough on trying to develop and maintain a regular spiritual discipline to worry unduly about the mechanics of it all.
I suppose Lent is a kind of spiritual MOT. Time to take stock and have an overhaul then perhaps.
Freedom is fundamental and comes before all. Without it there can be no creativity. Without freedom all is mechanical and dead. There could be no love, no goodness, no friendship, and no meaning.
Anyone compelled to act is responsible neither for the good nor the evil that he causes through his actions.
That’s a typical Berdyaev quote which I found on line by googling. I think that quote is superb.
There's two forms of determinism and I think that only addresses one. That one I think we might call ontic determinism - it holds that everything in existence operates mechanically according to impersonal laws, so that in theory human actions could be described without reference to psychological concepts. The other we might call psychological determinism: that would hold that one's actions are sufficiently determined by one's psychological state and character. So that if eg someone loves their children there's no possibility of them murdering their children for the sake of it. That view might say that being able to do anything, regardless of one's values and character and commitments, wouldn't be freedom but would be subjection to random whim.
I suspect there's a problem here in our ability to conceptualise what freedom means.
I did know that and from memory (can’t remember where) C S Lweic addressed psychological determinism critically. But I think Berdyaev also does this. Since a natural view of the operations of the mind, and particularly what we see as awareness, also suggest this is caused physically by atomic movements, there can be an entirely deterministic explanation, Here’s the Berdyaev quote on this issue.
Creativity requires agency. An agent is a center of consciousness, of decision-making, embodying intentionality and purpose. Determinism removes agency from the individual and effectively ascribes it to the Big Bang or the laws of nature, making human agency an illusion. Determinism reduces humans to the steel balls in a pinball machine that have no control over the spring-loaded mechanism that starts the ball’s journey around the machine, nor are there paddles that can be manipulated to alter the ball’s trajectory once the trip has begun.
Is human agency illusory? Psychological determinism seems to suggest that it is. I appreciate this can get complicated! One might argue that in a Plank probabilisitic universe (where future is determined at the subatomic level by the collapse of the wave function) the future is not known until it happens, but it happens as a result of the wave function collapse process. Which would seem to apply to thought processes as well. The psychological determinist argument seems to allow for awareness. In awareness terms “we are on the bus, but as a passenger. The idea that we are in some sense the driver is therefore illusory”. Is that really any different from what Berdyaev is arguing? In that case, human agency is an illusion. Choice is an illusion. The steel balls in the pinball machine may be seen as aware but they are still passengers.
Although I'm no longer a Protestant I find the old adage still applies, 'Pray like a Calvinist, work like an Arminian.'
Or, 'Work as though it all depends on you, pray as though it all depends on God.'
I don't see any other way to proceed.
Neither Luther or Calvin, for all their best efforts, got anywhere near resolving any of this as far as I can see. Nice try, guys but wide of the mark.
I'm not criticising you for having a go and you came up with some interesting bon-mots and insights along the way but please excuse me fellas if I skip over your hefty tomes and stick with Holy Tradition. No offence intended.
Meanwhile, let's share a tankard of German beer or whatever the tipple is in Geneva and agree on those things on which we all agree.
I was thinking some more of psychological determinism and I think my personal criticism also includes approval! That’s probably because I’m not sure it really is deterministic! It’s actually compassionate to recognise that people in their thinking may be prisoners of external factors. Culture, parental impressioning, peer pressure etc. The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy approach comes from a valid insight that we have “tapes playing in our heads”. We may be unaware, or aware, but unhappy because we seem to be stuck with them. CBT suggests that we will become healthier if we can escape this stuckness and I think that’s right. Whether by talking therapy or medication to reduce anxiety and help us to have calmer moments for reflection.
If I may get Traditional(!) or maybe biblical/traditional, I’ve always been impressed by the Ezekiel observation about the saying “the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. I think he argues that you can’t remove personal moral imperatives that way. Given that the insight comes from imprisonment in Babylon, it says something about thinking while imprisoned. Essentially Ezekiel argues that having your teeth set on edge ain’t necessarily so. We may be influenced but we are not determined. We can escape.
That’s a freedom thought. And also a very challenging one. Moving into greater personal freedom may indeed require healing from confusion caused by damaging external factors. We may indeed be victims of those. But escape from victimisation does contain the moral challenge. What do we do with the greater freedom to our human agency arising from our escape from victimisation?
The other we might call psychological determinism: that would hold that one's actions are sufficiently determined by one's psychological state and character. So that if eg someone loves their children there's no possibility of them murdering their children for the sake of it. That view might say that being able to do anything, regardless of one's values and character and commitments, wouldn't be freedom but would be subjection to random whim.
I did know that and from memory (can’t remember where) C S Lweic addressed psychological determinism critically. But I think Berdyaev also does this. Since a natural view of the operations of the mind, and particularly what we see as awareness, also suggest this is caused physically by atomic movements, there can be an entirely deterministic explanation,
Is human agency illusory? Psychological determinism seems to suggest that it is.
"Psychological determinism" may have been a bad choice for what I had in mind. Let me rename it to "volitional determinism".
I am contrasting volitional determinism with the belief that the operations of the mind are caused by atoms, which I called "ontic determinism".
Volitional determinism says that you have agency and freedom if you do something because your reason apprehends it as good and your will pursues it (in classical theory of mind), or because you desire the results and your reason sees that doing so will get you the results (recent theory of mind), or so on. If you have free will and you know what is good then you pursue the good. The idea of an acte gratuite (sp?) that knows the good and freely rejects it is incoherent.
(I'm thinking of the Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart as someone who holds this view.)
Knowing what is good and freely rejecting it is incoherent. Or it may just be sinful in Pauline terms (Romans 7). He also observes that the love of Christ constrains us (modern translation, leaves us choice).
The Galatians verse I quoted (Gal 5:1) is seen as saying that Christ’s redemption sets us free and the yoke of slavery to be avoided is about a return to sinning.
So how free in practice is human agency? There is some tension between being free and choosing freely to obey. Autonomy which disregards community can easily degenerate into a form of selfishness. I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. Bugger the rest!
I think that’s where I’m coming from in my belief in individual and communal wrestling. Choosing to wrestle is a free choice but communal wrestling can lead you up the garden path. It’s not free from personal danger. But I think it’s better than the lonely alternative. It is not good for human beings to be alone.
I can't go into it in detail at the moment, but Julian of Norwich's account is very interesting. She has a mutible, sensory nature, and an inner nature, which is immutably conformed to the divine but only occasionally expresses itself in this life. It is, however, always present and bursts out very occasionally.
Sorry I did not put Bondage of the Will in its proper place. BoW was written in response to Erasmus' point that humans had the capacity for free will. Luther thought Erasmus was saying humans could work out their own salvation. Luther said that was impossible because of original sin. This Wikipedia article may help.
@Gramps49 as you well know, it's entirely biblical to 'work out our salvation.'
Philippians 2:12 - 'work out your salvation with fear and trembling.'
That's different, of course, to 'salvation by works' or 'earning' our salvation. It is not of ourselves, it is a gift of God.
If I remember rightly, Luther went further and accused Erasmus of not being a Christian. All quite typical of his pugnacious polemical approach of course. Whatever else we might say about him, good, bad or indifferent, subtlety and nuance weren't his strong points.
He had a good line in fart gags though.
Of course, we can't write off the entire Lutheran tradition on the grounds of his personal quirks and peccadilloes, nor should we. From an Orthodox perspective though, having an entire tradition named after a particular individual is pretty problematic.
When certain forms of Protestant accuse the Orthodox of teaching 'traditions of men', the riposte is often that they ought to take a look in their own backyard. What is Lutheranism if it isn't a 'tradition of man'? Otherwise why does would it bear his name?
Now, from an Orthodox perspective that isn't to write the whole thing off, but I'm afraid we'd say it was fine where it accords with scripture and Tradition. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't see On The Bondage Of The Will as being compatible with either - should we even wish to separate the two of course, which we don't.
Obviously Lutheranism is bigger than Luther just as Calvinism or Wesleyanism has developed beyond the work and thought of their founders - and yes, forgive my facetiousness above, but there's much more there than a good line in fart gags and telling the Pope where to get off.
But we are getting into the 'sola scriptura' debate again and all this freewill/predestination stuff, interesting though it is, can take us away from the theme of the OP, the divinity of Christ.
I just can't get over what a dark world the Reformers, not to mention others, paint, with Hell as a sort of default destination for everyone not explicitly saved - and that salvation a thing they can't do diddly-squat about. Be one of the predestined or tough titty. I can't find any Hope or Love in it. Where's God's mercy reconciling all things to himself? Where's the triumph over evil, if it succeeds in drawing nearly everyone into Hell?
Yeah, yeah, emotionalism, tough shit, if this is the reality better get used to it and somehow redefine "irrascible bastard" not to include God, and look forward to all the people I've known and loved deservedly eternally tormented as that must be the Right Thing, mustn't it?
I just can't get over what a dark world the Reformers, not to mention others, paint, with Hell as a sort of default destination for everyone not explicitly saved - and that salvation a thing they can't do diddly-squat about. Be one of the predestined or tough titty. I can't find any Hope or Love in it. Where's God's mercy reconciling all things to himself? Where's the triumph over evil, if it succeeds in drawing nearly everyone into Hell?
Yeah, yeah, emotionalism, tough shit, if this is the reality better get used to it and somehow redefine "irrascible bastard" not to include God, and look forward to all the people I've known and loved deservedly eternally tormented as that must be the Right Thing, mustn't it?
How do people believe this without going mad?
Er... luckily... we have the capacity to truly, madly, deeply believe all manner of evil shit and still tie our shoelaces, be nice despite it.
Many here have a degree of damnationism, believe in an incompetent God, that Jesus doesn't, can't save. Because he said so.
I'm going to leave the hell stuff for the other thread. But re Luther and the name "Lutherans"--
It's the same case as what you usually find when a church or other group is named after a key figure in its history. Luther emphatically did NOT want anyone to be called a "Lutheran", that was a name foisted on the churches by their enemies. He preferred and promoted the term "evangelische," evangelical--but you can see why that won't fly anymore in the United States, and probably elsewhere.
Which is all to say, can we stop slanging Luther for the actions of his enemies? For that matter, could we stop slanging everybody? It's a thread on the divinity of Christ, not the demerits of this, that, and the other group. It's just getting so old.
I just can't get over what a dark world the Reformers, not to mention others, paint, with Hell as a sort of default destination for everyone not explicitly saved - and that salvation a thing they can't do diddly-squat about. Be one of the predestined or tough titty. I can't find any Hope or Love in it. Where's God's mercy reconciling all things to himself? Where's the triumph over evil, if it succeeds in drawing nearly everyone into Hell?
Yeah, yeah, emotionalism, tough shit, if this is the reality better get used to it and somehow redefine "irrascible bastard" not to include God, and look forward to all the people I've known and loved deservedly eternally tormented as that must be the Right Thing, mustn't it?
How do people believe this without going mad?
Well, some hyper-Calvinists have been driven mad by it.
But as @Nick Tamen and others rightly remind us, there is more to the Reformed tradition than the distortions of Dort.
I'm sure the same applies to the Lutheran tradition too. In fairness to Luther he was a man of his time, as we are all products of our particular milieu and environment.
Hence his medieval anti-semitism and often harshly polemical debating style.
I've heard Calvinists say that if you want something really deterministic, don't look at then, look at Luther.
I can't comment on that as I'm less familiar with the Lutheran tradition than I am with the Reformed one. And yes, @Nick Tamen I have come across the more cuddly end as well as the harsh neo-Calvinist end of the spectrum.
My brother knew a bloke who was convinced his daughter was reprobate and predestined to a lost eternity. Worse, he didn't seem bothered about it in the least.
I've got into trouble before on these boards for the way I've discussed this issue, and rightly so. I hasten to point out that this fella is atypical of the Reformed tradition in its broader sense.
Examples of the fundamentalist mindset can be found everywhere and in any tradition/Tradition.
But yes, 16th and 17th century polemics were very stark and black and white. Remember Cromwell's letter after the Battle of Marston Moor? 'God gave them as stubble to our swords.'
I've mentioned before how Londoners placed live cats inside effigies of the Pope before the annual burning of them so that their cries would sound as if he were screaming and make the spectacle more realistic.
They did some bastardly things in those days. Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich turned the handles on the rack themselves when torturing the early Protestant martyr Anne Askew before she was burned at the stake. She was carried there on a chair and propped up because all her limbs were out of joint.
If these guys were capable of administrating torture themselves they weren't going to think twice about condemning anyone who disagreed with them to a Godless eternity.
History is fascinating but things were pretty grim. But look at some of the shit we get up to now.
I just can't get over what a dark world the Reformers, not to mention others, paint, with Hell as a sort of default destination for everyone not explicitly saved - and that salvation a thing they can't do diddly-squat about. Be one of the predestined or tough titty. I can't find any Hope or Love in it. Where's God's mercy reconciling all things to himself? Where's the triumph over evil, if it succeeds in drawing nearly everyone into Hell?
Yeah, yeah, emotionalism, tough shit, if this is the reality better get used to it and somehow redefine "irrascible bastard" not to include God, and look forward to all the people I've known and loved deservedly eternally tormented as that must be the Right Thing, mustn't it?
How do people believe this without going mad?
Well, some hyper-Calvinists have been driven mad by it.
But as @Nick Tamen and others rightly remind us, there is more to the Reformed tradition than the distortions of Dort.
I'm sure the same applies to the Lutheran tradition too. In fairness to Luther he was a man of his time, as we are all products of our particular milieu and environment.
Hence his medieval anti-semitism and often harshly polemical debating style.
I've heard Calvinists say that if you want something really deterministic, don't look at then, look at Luther.
I can't comment on that as I'm less familiar with the Lutheran tradition than I am with the Reformed one. And yes, @Nick Tamen I have come across the more cuddly end as well as the harsh neo-Calvinist end of the spectrum.
My brother knew a bloke who was convinced his daughter was reprobate and predestined to a lost eternity. Worse, he didn't seem bothered about it in the least.
I've got into trouble before on these boards for the way I've discussed this issue, and rightly so. I hasten to point out that this fella is atypical of the Reformed tradition in its broader sense.
Examples of the fundamentalist mindset can be found everywhere and in any tradition/Tradition.
But yes, 16th and 17th century polemics were very stark and black and white. Remember Cromwell's letter after the Battle of Marston Moor? 'God gave them as stubble to our swords.'
I've mentioned before how Londoners placed live cats inside effigies of the Pope before the annual burning of them so that their cries would sound as if he were screaming and make the spectacle more realistic.
They did some bastardly things in those days. Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich turned the handles on the rack themselves when torturing the early Protestant martyr Anne Askew before she was burned at the stake. She was carried there on a chair and propped up because all her limbs were out of joint.
If these guys were capable of administrating torture themselves they weren't going to think twice about condemning anyone who disagreed with them to a Godless eternity.
History is fascinating but things were pretty grim. But look at some of the shit we get up to now.
Oh aye, I'm sure habituation to appalling cruelty fed secular and theological cruelty. As the song says, you've got to be carefully taught.
But it'd drive me to despair to consider that the cruel and violent ages of the past were closer to the mind of God.
"Suffer the little children to come unto me - but make sure they're properly catechised and baptised or if they die they gonna fry"
I'm going to leave the hell stuff for the other thread. But re Luther and the name "Lutherans"--
It's the same case as what you usually find when a church or other group is named after a key figure in its history. Luther emphatically did NOT want anyone to be called a "Lutheran", that was a name foisted on the churches by their enemies. He preferred and promoted the term "evangelische," evangelical--but you can see why that won't fly anymore in the United States, and probably elsewhere.
@Forthview or someone else who knows better than I can correct me, but my understanding is that evangelische is still used in German-speaking countries to mean “Protestant,” or more specifically, “Lutheran,” with evangelikal being used for “evangelical” in the English sense.
Which is all to say, can we stop slanging Luther for the actions of his enemies? For that matter, could we stop slanging everybody? It's a thread on the divinity of Christ, not the demerits of this, that, and the other group. It's just getting so old.
Hey, who's 'slanging Luther for the actions of his enemies'?
I said, 'to be fair to Luther' and give him credit for his fart gags didn't I?
What more do you want? For me to agree with him? 😉
I've said I'd happily agree when what he wrote accords with scripture and Tradition ...
Besides, I didn't start the tangent on determinism and I've warned several times that we were drifting off the theme of the OP but nobody took any notice.
I've also offered to sit down with both Luther and Calvin over a tankard of German beer or a tipple of whatever they had in Geneva and discuss what we have in common.
I'm sure the divinity of Christ would be among those things.
The point is that Lutheranism and Calvinism can't be reduced to their founder, and the constant carping on their personal characteristics is getting extremely tedious. Talk about their ideas, not their scatological humour or legalism, or shut up.
The Divinity of Jesus is a deep subject. This thread started by us being asked to consider when did Jesus become Divine. So it’s was natural to consider what various groups have believed. The Incarnation by its nature brings in natural/supernatural considerations. I guess it’s bound to spawn tangents as conversations go on. Hard to avoid that when the thread has a deep starting point.
I agree with you about denigration. Critical consideration of ideas is a normal part of discussions here but critical consideration of groups can hit too close to home.
Also, on evangelische, I remember a previous thread in which Lutheranchik (who I miss) observed “We want our word back!” As always, she had a point. She made me smile too.
The thread and it tangents didn’t get old for me, but that’s just me. I enjoy free ranging discussions, but that’s not necessarily helpful to others.
I don't mind tangents at all. What I do mind is having various groups (including ones I don't belong to) get run down, again and again and again. Because I'm overloading on that stuff in real life, being stuck in Trump's America, God help us, and I'm just not coping. I'm up for all the tangents ever if we can just stop from pointing out everybody's group's negative sides, over and over and over. Please don't sign off the thread.
I just can't get over what a dark world the Reformers, not to mention others, paint, with Hell as a sort of default destination for everyone not explicitly saved - and that salvation a thing they can't do diddly-squat about. Be one of the predestined or tough titty. I can't find any Hope or Love in it. Where's God's mercy reconciling all things to himself? Where's the triumph over evil, if it succeeds in drawing nearly everyone into Hell?
Yeah, yeah, emotionalism, tough shit, if this is the reality better get used to it and somehow redefine "irrascible bastard" not to include God, and look forward to all the people I've known and loved deservedly eternally tormented as that must be the Right Thing, mustn't it?
How do people believe this without going mad?
Well, some hyper-Calvinists have been driven mad by it.
But as @Nick Tamen and others rightly remind us, there is more to the Reformed tradition than the distortions of Dort.
I'm sure the same applies to the Lutheran tradition too. In fairness to Luther he was a man of his time, as we are all products of our particular milieu and environment.
Hence his medieval anti-semitism and often harshly polemical debating style.
I've heard Calvinists say that if you want something really deterministic, don't look at then, look at Luther.
I can't comment on that as I'm less familiar with the Lutheran tradition than I am with the Reformed one. And yes, @Nick Tamen I have come across the more cuddly end as well as the harsh neo-Calvinist end of the spectrum.
My brother knew a bloke who was convinced his daughter was reprobate and predestined to a lost eternity. Worse, he didn't seem bothered about it in the least.
I've got into trouble before on these boards for the way I've discussed this issue, and rightly so. I hasten to point out that this fella is atypical of the Reformed tradition in its broader sense.
Examples of the fundamentalist mindset can be found everywhere and in any tradition/Tradition.
But yes, 16th and 17th century polemics were very stark and black and white. Remember Cromwell's letter after the Battle of Marston Moor? 'God gave them as stubble to our swords.'
I've mentioned before how Londoners placed live cats inside effigies of the Pope before the annual burning of them so that their cries would sound as if he were screaming and make the spectacle more realistic.
They did some bastardly things in those days. Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich turned the handles on the rack themselves when torturing the early Protestant martyr Anne Askew before she was burned at the stake. She was carried there on a chair and propped up because all her limbs were out of joint.
If these guys were capable of administrating torture themselves they weren't going to think twice about condemning anyone who disagreed with them to a Godless eternity.
History is fascinating but things were pretty grim. But look at some of the shit we get up to now.
Oh aye, I'm sure habituation to appalling cruelty fed secular and theological cruelty. As the song says, you've got to be carefully taught.
But it'd drive me to despair to consider that the cruel and violent ages of the past were closer to the mind of God.
"Suffer the little children to come unto me - but make sure they're properly catechised and baptised or if they die they gonna fry"
How do you stand it mate? All this writhing in pain on the cross of fundamentalism? Trying to see a glimmer of light in the endless stygian gloom? Peace my friend.
@Nick Tamen just as many Christians in the English speaking world divide their communities roughly into Catholic and Protestant ,most German speakers would divide them into 'katholisch' and 'evangelisch'.
'protestantisch' tends to refer to the time of the Reformation.
'evangelikal' is, at least for me, a fairly modern word used in the way that 'evangelical' is sometimes used in English It would be used by those who belong to such communities, but would not be an everyday word for those who do not actually belong to these communities.
They would ,I think, always be free church communities not supported by the state.
One loose end and a brief (and I hope well timed) comment. About Alexander Men. The website which gave me access to his writings has been pulled so this is from memory. He was fully Trinitarian, fully believing in the full Divinity and full humanity of Christ. He was ecumenical in the best sense of that word. He lived with some criticism from his fellow Orthodox for some of the things he wrote. He was a good priest and a good pastor. He brought many to faith and baptism at a time of great oppression in the USSR. His books were denied publication in his lifetime. After his assassination, (thought to be KGB inspired) hundreds and hundreds attended his funeral, knowing full well that KGB agents would be noting who attended. He was a good man.
At this point in this thread I want to stress his ecumenism. My experience is that I have seen Christlike behaviour across denomination and in my own, regardless of different understandings of what it means, and yes, despite seeing the opposite too. We have much to gain from celebrating what we have in common. And acknowledging that none of us is perfect.
He was an active local priest for over thirty years as well as a prolific Christian writer and speaker. People used to come for miles to hear him preach. He both wrote and spoke out for freedom at a time when that was not safe. His books were banned while he was alive because they were seen to challenge Soviet State. The KGB interrogated him on several occasions. Although not proven, many have thought the KGB had a hand in his assassination. He wasn’t an ivory tower Christian. He reached out beyond Russian Orthodoxy to both Catholics and Protestants and embraced diversity of belief.
Will that do? All of the above is a matter of public record. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking of. He did a lot more than talk the talk.
He was an active local priest for over thirty years as well as a prolific Christian writer and speaker. People used to come for miles to hear him preach. He both wrote and spoke out for freedom at a time when that was not safe. His books were banned while he was alive because they were seen to challenge Soviet State. The KGB interrogated him on several occasions. Although not proven, many have thought the KGB had a hand in his assassination. He wasn’t an ivory tower Christian. He reached out beyond Russian Orthodoxy to both Catholics and Protestants and embraced diversity of belief.
Will that do? All of the above is a matter of public record. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking of. He did a lot more than talk the talk.
What assassination? Ohhhhhh! Alexander Men's. Not Berdyaev. Aye, a good man. Assassination or murder?
Depends whether you believe the KGB had a hand in it. He was killed brutally, with an axe.
I don’t know enough to be sure whether he had private enemies. At any rate, the person who killed him was never found, never prosecuted. If the murderer was insane, or seeking personal vengeance for some other reason, I think he was more likely to be caught. But his death remains a mystery. And a tragedy.
Since you mention him, Berdyaev died in post war France in 1948. He got out of Russia. I should think his life, certainly his freedom, were increasingly at risk in Stalinist Russia. But I think he died peacefully, aged 74.
So in our day how do we come to terms with both God as Mystery and the Trinity as authoritatively defined?
We resist the temptation to reduce something as incomprehensible as the Ultimate Consciousness to a binary this/not that.
I personally just simply expand my field of possibility to include both - one exists inside the other, both are one and the same thing, just projected into time and space in a different manner for the convenience of being made approachable by the smaller fragments of Itself, namely, our individual consciousnesses.
To use another "dramatic" reference - like a color movie where the color we perceive is made up of three wavelengths red, blue and green, but when you combine them you get white.
Comments
I don’t like predestination any more than I like philosophical determinism. Personal responsibility predicates freedom to choose well or badly. As I see it. I’ve read some rationalisations but did not find them convincing.
I think the Russian philosopher and Christian, Berdyaev, did a much better job in defending the essential importance of free will, and freedom of choice. I might dig out some references later.
I don't see what his late Scholastic/Augustinian speculations have to do with the divinity of Christ, the subject of this thread. Luther or no Luther it is Christ who saves. Salvation is Christ.
I've not read his Bondage Of The Will but imagine it is best understood in the context of polemics between the RCs and Regormers in 16th century Western Europe. Nowt to do with us ...
Not that we aren't aware of those controversies and debates of course, it's just that they only apply to a particular historical context and set of controversies that were someone else's fight not ours.
Luther can say what he likes about the human will. It's got nothing to do with me other than academic interest. Our salvation doesn't depend on what Luther taught or thought.
*Not that we believe that we can save ourselves, of course.
It really isn't a big deal to us and I can't get exercised about it any more. I hope I don't sound like a Philistine but I really have no interest whatsoever in reading Luther on this issue. I'd rather laugh at his fart gags.
Calvin's Institutes are all very worthy but I didn't quite reach the end. Not that the Fathers are always a scintillating read either and there are huge gaps in my knowledge and understanding there.
If I were still a Protestant then yes, the writings of Luther and Calvin would certainly be of interest but with the best will in the world they no longer apply to me and if I did read them it'd only be out of curiosity and academic interest. That isn't to say that they don't have value or don't 'ring true' on certain points. Of course they do.
It doesn't mean that I'm not interested in the Churches they've influenced and what they do in terms of mission, teaching and ministry etc. I'm always up for hearing about things like that.
It's not about compulsion.
Well, we were “bought with a price,” but that’s not to do with having free will.
That’s a typical Berdyaev quote which I found on line by googling. I think that quote is superb.
I think he was Russian Orthodox. At any rate he was much admired by the Russian Orthodox Priest Alexander Men (who was in turn admired by me). Men, who was a victim of political assassination, wrote some tremendous stuff about the Christian faith.
On the other hand, nobody is going to be able to stand there on the Last Day and say, "God, it's your fault that I'm shut out of the Kingdom." That's on us.
Yes, of course this looks illogical. It is nevertheless what we see in the Scriptures. If logic doesn't fit well with that, Lutherans say, so much the worse for logic.
I suspect there's a problem here in our ability to conceptualise what freedom means.
That's a Rome vs the Reformers issue.
It doesn't mean that we take credit or deprive God of the glory and set up false dichotomies here, there and everywhere.
'Help us, save us, have mercy on us and keep us, O God, by Thy grace.'
The Orthodox do believe in predestination. It's in the scriptures. But we don't speculate as to how it all works. None of us can get under the bonnet (the hood) and work out the mechanics as to how divine grace and human responsibility works.
Whatever the relative detail and merits or demerits of their respective schemas, both Lutheran and Calvinist approaches - even bearing in mind that there are moderate versions of both - appear very 'Scholastic' and speculative to us. An Orthodox reading of scripture is less prescriptive on these matters than what I understand of the Reformed and the Lutheran approaches.
That doesn't mean that those approaches lack nuance or aren't thought through rigorously. But from our perspective they are overdone - over-egged to use a phrase I over use.
I'm sure Luther was laying things on thickly to make a point and to correct what he felt were imbalances on the side of the Humanists like Erasmus. That's as may be.
There are potential imbalances on all sides. @Gramps49 related the story of the Norwegian Lutheran pastor who thanked God on his death bed that he had not performed any 'good works.'
Equally, I'm sure there are Orthodox who go round thinking that they'll be saved by observing every microscopic liturgical detail to the nth degree.
Or, as I've heard it said about some rural Greeks, that they think only Greeks can be Christians.
Tough luck if you are Korean, Australian, Russian, South African, British, Madagascan or whatever else.
We tend not to systematise this stuff in the way that some Western Christians do. We are, however closer yo some Anabaptist groups and to the Wesleyan Methodists in our views on these matters.
For my own part, I've had to adjust my thinking a fair bit but tend not to 'over-think' it all. I have a tendency to do that.
But I've got enough on trying to develop and maintain a regular spiritual discipline to worry unduly about the mechanics of it all.
I suppose Lent is a kind of spiritual MOT. Time to take stock and have an overhaul then perhaps.
I did know that and from memory (can’t remember where) C S Lweic addressed psychological determinism critically. But I think Berdyaev also does this. Since a natural view of the operations of the mind, and particularly what we see as awareness, also suggest this is caused physically by atomic movements, there can be an entirely deterministic explanation, Here’s the Berdyaev quote on this issue.
Is human agency illusory? Psychological determinism seems to suggest that it is. I appreciate this can get complicated! One might argue that in a Plank probabilisitic universe (where future is determined at the subatomic level by the collapse of the wave function) the future is not known until it happens, but it happens as a result of the wave function collapse process. Which would seem to apply to thought processes as well. The psychological determinist argument seems to allow for awareness. In awareness terms “we are on the bus, but as a passenger. The idea that we are in some sense the driver is therefore illusory”. Is that really any different from what Berdyaev is arguing? In that case, human agency is an illusion. Choice is an illusion. The steel balls in the pinball machine may be seen as aware but they are still passengers.
Or, 'Work as though it all depends on you, pray as though it all depends on God.'
I don't see any other way to proceed.
Neither Luther or Calvin, for all their best efforts, got anywhere near resolving any of this as far as I can see. Nice try, guys but wide of the mark.
I'm not criticising you for having a go and you came up with some interesting bon-mots and insights along the way but please excuse me fellas if I skip over your hefty tomes and stick with Holy Tradition. No offence intended.
Meanwhile, let's share a tankard of German beer or whatever the tipple is in Geneva and agree on those things on which we all agree.
I was thinking some more of psychological determinism and I think my personal criticism also includes approval! That’s probably because I’m not sure it really is deterministic! It’s actually compassionate to recognise that people in their thinking may be prisoners of external factors. Culture, parental impressioning, peer pressure etc. The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy approach comes from a valid insight that we have “tapes playing in our heads”. We may be unaware, or aware, but unhappy because we seem to be stuck with them. CBT suggests that we will become healthier if we can escape this stuckness and I think that’s right. Whether by talking therapy or medication to reduce anxiety and help us to have calmer moments for reflection.
If I may get Traditional(!) or maybe biblical/traditional, I’ve always been impressed by the Ezekiel observation about the saying “the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. I think he argues that you can’t remove personal moral imperatives that way. Given that the insight comes from imprisonment in Babylon, it says something about thinking while imprisoned. Essentially Ezekiel argues that having your teeth set on edge ain’t necessarily so. We may be influenced but we are not determined. We can escape.
That’s a freedom thought. And also a very challenging one. Moving into greater personal freedom may indeed require healing from confusion caused by damaging external factors. We may indeed be victims of those. But escape from victimisation does contain the moral challenge. What do we do with the greater freedom to our human agency arising from our escape from victimisation?
Have you come across Alexander Men in your Orthodox journeying? He’s a find!
I am contrasting volitional determinism with the belief that the operations of the mind are caused by atoms, which I called "ontic determinism".
Volitional determinism says that you have agency and freedom if you do something because your reason apprehends it as good and your will pursues it (in classical theory of mind), or because you desire the results and your reason sees that doing so will get you the results (recent theory of mind), or so on. If you have free will and you know what is good then you pursue the good. The idea of an acte gratuite (sp?) that knows the good and freely rejects it is incoherent.
(I'm thinking of the Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart as someone who holds this view.)
Yes!
Knowing what is good and freely rejecting it is incoherent. Or it may just be sinful in Pauline terms (Romans 7). He also observes that the love of Christ constrains us (modern translation, leaves us choice).
The Galatians verse I quoted (Gal 5:1) is seen as saying that Christ’s redemption sets us free and the yoke of slavery to be avoided is about a return to sinning.
So how free in practice is human agency? There is some tension between being free and choosing freely to obey. Autonomy which disregards community can easily degenerate into a form of selfishness. I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. Bugger the rest!
I think that’s where I’m coming from in my belief in individual and communal wrestling. Choosing to wrestle is a free choice but communal wrestling can lead you up the garden path. It’s not free from personal danger. But I think it’s better than the lonely alternative. It is not good for human beings to be alone.
I hope that’s not too incoherent!
Only insofar as I've read about him but I've not read anything he wrote.
Philippians 2:12 - 'work out your salvation with fear and trembling.'
That's different, of course, to 'salvation by works' or 'earning' our salvation. It is not of ourselves, it is a gift of God.
If I remember rightly, Luther went further and accused Erasmus of not being a Christian. All quite typical of his pugnacious polemical approach of course. Whatever else we might say about him, good, bad or indifferent, subtlety and nuance weren't his strong points.
He had a good line in fart gags though.
Of course, we can't write off the entire Lutheran tradition on the grounds of his personal quirks and peccadilloes, nor should we. From an Orthodox perspective though, having an entire tradition named after a particular individual is pretty problematic.
When certain forms of Protestant accuse the Orthodox of teaching 'traditions of men', the riposte is often that they ought to take a look in their own backyard. What is Lutheranism if it isn't a 'tradition of man'? Otherwise why does would it bear his name?
Now, from an Orthodox perspective that isn't to write the whole thing off, but I'm afraid we'd say it was fine where it accords with scripture and Tradition. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't see On The Bondage Of The Will as being compatible with either - should we even wish to separate the two of course, which we don't.
Obviously Lutheranism is bigger than Luther just as Calvinism or Wesleyanism has developed beyond the work and thought of their founders - and yes, forgive my facetiousness above, but there's much more there than a good line in fart gags and telling the Pope where to get off.
But we are getting into the 'sola scriptura' debate again and all this freewill/predestination stuff, interesting though it is, can take us away from the theme of the OP, the divinity of Christ.
Luther was very polemical. If you disagreed with him, you were not a Christian in his mind.
I think it got worse as he got older.
Yeah, yeah, emotionalism, tough shit, if this is the reality better get used to it and somehow redefine "irrascible bastard" not to include God, and look forward to all the people I've known and loved deservedly eternally tormented as that must be the Right Thing, mustn't it?
How do people believe this without going mad?
Er... luckily... we have the capacity to truly, madly, deeply believe all manner of evil shit and still tie our shoelaces, be nice despite it.
Many here have a degree of damnationism, believe in an incompetent God, that Jesus doesn't, can't save. Because he said so.
It's the same case as what you usually find when a church or other group is named after a key figure in its history. Luther emphatically did NOT want anyone to be called a "Lutheran", that was a name foisted on the churches by their enemies. He preferred and promoted the term "evangelische," evangelical--but you can see why that won't fly anymore in the United States, and probably elsewhere.
Which is all to say, can we stop slanging Luther for the actions of his enemies? For that matter, could we stop slanging everybody? It's a thread on the divinity of Christ, not the demerits of this, that, and the other group. It's just getting so old.
Well, some hyper-Calvinists have been driven mad by it.
But as @Nick Tamen and others rightly remind us, there is more to the Reformed tradition than the distortions of Dort.
I'm sure the same applies to the Lutheran tradition too. In fairness to Luther he was a man of his time, as we are all products of our particular milieu and environment.
Hence his medieval anti-semitism and often harshly polemical debating style.
I've heard Calvinists say that if you want something really deterministic, don't look at then, look at Luther.
I can't comment on that as I'm less familiar with the Lutheran tradition than I am with the Reformed one. And yes, @Nick Tamen I have come across the more cuddly end as well as the harsh neo-Calvinist end of the spectrum.
My brother knew a bloke who was convinced his daughter was reprobate and predestined to a lost eternity. Worse, he didn't seem bothered about it in the least.
I've got into trouble before on these boards for the way I've discussed this issue, and rightly so. I hasten to point out that this fella is atypical of the Reformed tradition in its broader sense.
Examples of the fundamentalist mindset can be found everywhere and in any tradition/Tradition.
But yes, 16th and 17th century polemics were very stark and black and white. Remember Cromwell's letter after the Battle of Marston Moor? 'God gave them as stubble to our swords.'
I've mentioned before how Londoners placed live cats inside effigies of the Pope before the annual burning of them so that their cries would sound as if he were screaming and make the spectacle more realistic.
They did some bastardly things in those days. Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich turned the handles on the rack themselves when torturing the early Protestant martyr Anne Askew before she was burned at the stake. She was carried there on a chair and propped up because all her limbs were out of joint.
If these guys were capable of administrating torture themselves they weren't going to think twice about condemning anyone who disagreed with them to a Godless eternity.
History is fascinating but things were pretty grim. But look at some of the shit we get up to now.
Oh aye, I'm sure habituation to appalling cruelty fed secular and theological cruelty. As the song says, you've got to be carefully taught.
But it'd drive me to despair to consider that the cruel and violent ages of the past were closer to the mind of God.
"Suffer the little children to come unto me - but make sure they're properly catechised and baptised or if they die they gonna fry"
Very old!
I said, 'to be fair to Luther' and give him credit for his fart gags didn't I?
What more do you want? For me to agree with him? 😉
I've said I'd happily agree when what he wrote accords with scripture and Tradition ...
Besides, I didn't start the tangent on determinism and I've warned several times that we were drifting off the theme of the OP but nobody took any notice.
I've also offered to sit down with both Luther and Calvin over a tankard of German beer or a tipple of whatever they had in Geneva and discuss what we have in common.
I'm sure the divinity of Christ would be among those things.
Sorry. You’re right of course.
The Divinity of Jesus is a deep subject. This thread started by us being asked to consider when did Jesus become Divine. So it’s was natural to consider what various groups have believed. The Incarnation by its nature brings in natural/supernatural considerations. I guess it’s bound to spawn tangents as conversations go on. Hard to avoid that when the thread has a deep starting point.
I agree with you about denigration. Critical consideration of ideas is a normal part of discussions here but critical consideration of groups can hit too close to home.
Also, on evangelische, I remember a previous thread in which Lutheranchik (who I miss) observed “We want our word back!” As always, she had a point. She made me smile too.
The thread and it tangents didn’t get old for me, but that’s just me. I enjoy free ranging discussions, but that’s not necessarily helpful to others.
I’m signing off this thread.
How do you stand it mate? All this writhing in pain on the cross of fundamentalism? Trying to see a glimmer of light in the endless stygian gloom? Peace my friend.
'protestantisch' tends to refer to the time of the Reformation.
'evangelikal' is, at least for me, a fairly modern word used in the way that 'evangelical' is sometimes used in English It would be used by those who belong to such communities, but would not be an everyday word for those who do not actually belong to these communities.
They would ,I think, always be free church communities not supported by the state.
At this point in this thread I want to stress his ecumenism. My experience is that I have seen Christlike behaviour across denomination and in my own, regardless of different understandings of what it means, and yes, despite seeing the opposite too. We have much to gain from celebrating what we have in common. And acknowledging that none of us is perfect.
Florevsky had a go at Berdyaev because he thought he was too 'Western' in his thinking. You can't be Orthodox enough for some Orthodox.
Meanwhile, I will behave myself on this thread from now on. I'll buy both Luther and Calvin a pint next time I see them.
What walk?
Will that do? All of the above is a matter of public record. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking of. He did a lot more than talk the talk.
What assassination? Ohhhhhh! Alexander Men's. Not Berdyaev. Aye, a good man. Assassination or murder?
I don’t know enough to be sure whether he had private enemies. At any rate, the person who killed him was never found, never prosecuted. If the murderer was insane, or seeking personal vengeance for some other reason, I think he was more likely to be caught. But his death remains a mystery. And a tragedy.
Since you mention him, Berdyaev died in post war France in 1948. He got out of Russia. I should think his life, certainly his freedom, were increasingly at risk in Stalinist Russia. But I think he died peacefully, aged 74.
We resist the temptation to reduce something as incomprehensible as the Ultimate Consciousness to a binary this/not that.
I personally just simply expand my field of possibility to include both - one exists inside the other, both are one and the same thing, just projected into time and space in a different manner for the convenience of being made approachable by the smaller fragments of Itself, namely, our individual consciousnesses.
To use another "dramatic" reference - like a color movie where the color we perceive is made up of three wavelengths red, blue and green, but when you combine them you get white.
AFF