More on Monophysites...

[Mor Ephrem]

Dear OOD,

XA! (I don't know if Greeks usually abbreviate it the way Slavs sometimes do...)

The whole issue of being or not being a Monophysite can be firmly obscured in abstract concepts so that most people could hardly even guess what you are talking about, which has the ecumenical benefit of making the issue look “silly”.

Sorry, my friend, but Christology is neither silly nor simple.

With this in mind, and as you know, I have raised the issue of another aspect of Monophysitism that can be easily talked about and understood – and one that the ecumenist haven’t yet had the chance to whitewash into more “sins” of the Holy Fathers. And that is: Monothelitism.

Not our battle, but yours.

It is clear enough that “Orientals” are a Monothelites, which was condemned by the Sixth Oecumenical Council.

Ditto my last comment.

Go to this link and scroll to the last section (section 10) – the very end.
http://www.copticchurch.net/topics/theo ... christ.pdf

I see nothing unOrthodox there. Perhaps you are misunderstanding it? Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened.

The Orthodox believe that "Christ had two natures with two activities: as God working miracles, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven; as Man, performing the ordinary acts of daily life. Each nature exercises its own free will". Christ's divine nature had a specific task to perform and so did His human, without being confused nor subjected to any change or working against each other.

So Christ can flip a switch and go into "God-mode" or "man-mode"? Who died on the Cross?

"The two distinct natures and related to them activities were mystically united in the one Divine Person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ".

"Two distinct natures mystically united in the one Divine Person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ"--this is what we believe.

As I have said before on this forum, Monothelitism could only be a product of a real Monophysitism - sparrows don't lay duck eggs, they lay sparrow eggs. Either way, no matter how you slice it, you do not share the same faith as us.

If you really believe Christ can "flip a switch" and be God or man depending on His/his Will/will (as if He was schizophrenic), then I guess we don't. I hope I'm misunderstanding you.

And, again, Monothelitism was a Greek/Latin problem.

Again, I have said this before on this forum and you have not addressed it AFAIK; and I can only guess that is because it is true and you have nothing to say.

OOD, it need not be because it is true and I am without defence. It could also be, for instance, that a) I'm a student, and don't have so much time to engage in debate beyond a certain level due to my schedule, or b) I don't care enough to continue it. Actually it is a bit of both.

If you were confronted with some of the "ecumenist" Orthodox I know and decided to dialogue with them, you might not be surprised to see them reject many of your criticisms and dismiss them and you as misguided. At some point, I'm sure you would just quit talking about that stuff, not because you think you're wrong and they're right, but because it's hard to constructively go about dialogue in such conditions. That, at least, is part of my experience here. Continuing the dialogue leads to the following...

Yet you continue to struggle to prove that you are Orthodox, which seems disingenuous.

I do not struggle to prove that I am Orthodox, I know I am, by God's grace. Unfortunately, in such dialogues, we give the impression that we want to be accepted, as if we recognised some sort of "not good enough" quality in us that we need to rectify. Similarly, many of the posts here about the horrors of "world Orthodoxy" and the truth of the "true Orthodox" way seem to me as if you (pl.) feel the need to prove that you're justified in breaking away from the Eastern Orthodox Churches, but I generally give you the benefit of the doubt and prefer to think that you are not insecure.

I mean, if you believe Christ had One-Will (which is a result of his supposed One-Nature), why not just admit that you don’t have the same faith as us – why the constant struggle to prove that you believe the same as us and that everyone in history were wrong?

Because the question is stated in such a way as to force an answer rather than elicit the honest truth.

Besides, it's not that everyone in history was wrong, but that many took X and went too far with it. We are not immune from criticism, admittedly, but neither are you.

No offense to you, I just don't get it. Nobody seems to want to acknowledge the 800lb gorilla in the living room.

I completely agree; I just think we have different gorillas in mind.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Mor Ephrem,

So Christ can flip a switch and go into "God-mode" or "man-mode"? Who died on the Cross?

When Jesus and the Apostles were on the boat in the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was at first asleep. It was not His divine nature that needed sleep, it was His human nature. And while He was asleep, do you think for a minute His divine Nature was snoozing as well, unaware of everything that was going on? Finally, when the storm erupted (and even to this day storms erupt on the Sea of Galilee from out of nowhere), Jesus was awakened by the Apostles to save them. So when Jesus stood up and calmed the seas, this was the divine nature of Jesus working, not His human nature, which still may have been groggy.

I believe you are saying “flip from God-mode to man-mode” in order to make all of this sound ridiculous - please be careful though as we are talking about God. But to answer your flipping question, both Natures of Christ were always at work, there was no "off".

"Two distinct natures mystically united in the one Divine Person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ"--this is what we believe.

Yes, you believe in One Nature – that Christ’s divine nature was asleep at times, which would have been a great time to get away with all kinds of things without Him knowing.

If you really believe Christ can "flip a switch" and be God or man depending on His/his Will/will (as if He was schizophrenic), then I guess we don't. I hope I'm misunderstanding you.

What I explained above is applied by extension to His Wills. Because His Human Will agreed to calm the seas, but it only working with His divine will to make it happen. Likewise, when Christ was sleeping, His divine Will agreed and worked with with His human Will but it had nothing to gain from the actual act.

The real problem with the One-Nature One-Will theology is that Christ no longer has a purely human will, which means He could not have sinned. This gets into a whole mess of things that St. Maximus the Confessor writes about. But...

...in all of this Mor Ephrem, I am not trying to debate who is right and who is wrong (we all know I am right ) I am simply trying to assert that it is wrong for everyone to say “there are no differences” and everyone in history was a fool. Not only were these men not fools, they were by far more enlightened than most of the spiritual nitwits we see walking around today; people who like to be called Fr. Dr. Jimmy Groanopolis PhD, MMD, CPA - as if "Fr." needs to be shored-up with more an more "impressive" worldly credentials)

[Mor Ephrem]

But to answer your flipping question...

If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were mad at me.

The real problem with the One-Nature One-Will theology is that Christ no longer has a purely human will, which means He could not have sinned. This gets into a whole mess of things that St. Maximus the Confessor writes about.

More seriously, what does Maximus the Confessor have to say about "What if Jesus did sin?" (since obviously, according to you, He could've)? "But He didn't" does not seem to be a good enough answer if you are going to assert that He could've sinned.

[Chrysostomos]

OOD and Mor Ephrem,

Was reading the 4th Catechumen Lecture by St. Cyril of Jerusalem and found this quote. Thought I'd relay it to you, since it was applicable to your discussion.

The Christ was of two natures, Man in what was seen, but God in what was not seen; as Man truly eating like us, for He had the like feeling of the flesh with us; but as God feeding the five thousand from five loaves; as Man truly dying, but as God raising him that had been dead four days; truly sleeping in the ship as Man, and walking upon the waters as God.

Your fellow struggler in Christ,

Rd. Chrysostomos

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were mad at me.

Whoops.

More seriously, what does Maximus the Confessor have to say about "What if Jesus did sin?" (since obviously, according to you, He could've)? "But He didn't" does not seem to be a good enough answer if you are going to assert that He could've sinned.

Well, if you want to talk about what is right and wrong, and not just that we are different, then....

I see your question as purely hypothetical; its like asking: what if God created us not to fall into sin? Or, if God can do anything, what if He sinned right now?

We are what we are because we have a human Will; this is what makes us different from the animals. This human nature is shared by everyone despite their individual ways of using and expressing it. Each person freely chooses for himself and ideally, a person always freely choose that which is Will of God. It is because man in his fallen nature does not always know what’s GOOD, we sin. But in Christ, there is no deprivation of knowledge of what is good.

The act of salvation understood by the Orthodox is not a one-sided act so that God "forces" His salvation on man. It is also not a divided act so that Christ as man reconciles God the “wrathful” Father (as the Latins and Protestants constantly promote) with man – the Orthodox believe it is a cooperative act.

Salvation is something only God can provide, but also something which we have to choose freely. The fall of man was the misuse of our free will; it was not the work of God. Christ is the archetype of the future relationship between man and God, where we become so much like God that we think and act as God would – by our own free will.

One could say that Christ did not have the capacity to sin, but then He is not the God-man, He is not God united to man in perfect cooperation, He is not really man, rather, He is God disguised as a man, God, who seems to have hijacked a man’s body because there was no better way to give us this message and example of “perfection” even though we can never achieve it anyway (after all, God could not even achieve it). This is in fact what Nestorians preached, that the Holy Theotokos did not give birth to God, but merley provided a vessel. The conclusion then is, we are predisposed to sin and sin is our natural state and Jesus was not really a man.

[neonlinux]

I wish to make a disclaimer up front!

By my following comments I certainly do NOT wish to provoke anyone on this wonderful forum -- I deeply appreciate being able to be a lurker!

I wish to thank all participants for their valuable contributions.

However, I only wish to share my deep appreciation for EkhristosAnesti's posts publicly.
I thoroughly recognize the strong and intense fervor for the positions of both the EO and the OO.
I am not interested in stirring up any 'flames' here OK???
I have enough challenges with Microsoft fans since I have a strong fervor for Linux not to enter into Orthodox theological challenges on their turf.

[Joshua F]

One could say that Christ did not have the capacity to sin, but then He is not the God-man, He is not God united to man in perfect cooperation, He is not really man, rather, He is God disguised as a man, God, who seems to have hijacked a man’s body because there was no better way to give us this message and example of “perfection” even though we can never achieve it anyway (after all, God could not even achieve it). This is in fact what Nestorians preached, that the Holy Theotokos did not give birth to God, but merley provided a vessel. The conclusion then is, we are predisposed to sin and sin is our natural state and Jesus was not really a man.

I'm not 100% sure what it is you are saying here, OOD, but it almost sounds like you think the Divine and human wills of Christ could be opposed to each other (ie. sin) - even if they never were actually so opposed. The Orthodox position is that his two wills could not possibly be opposed to each other, and therefore that he could absolutely not have sinned. In support of this statement I offer the following citations from the Sixth Ecumenical Council, St. John of Damascus' Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, and St. Hilary of Poitiers work on the Holy Trinity:

For when we confess two natures and two natural wills, and two natural operations in our one Lord Jesus Christ, we do not assert that they are contrary or opposed one to the other (as those who err from the path of truth and accuse the apostolic tradition of doing. Far be this impiety from the hearts of the faithful!), nor as though separated (per se separated) in two persons or subsistences, but we say that as the same our Lord Jesus Christ has two natures so also he has two natural wills and operations, to wit, the divine an dthe human: the divine will and operation he has in common with the coessential Father from all eternity: the human, he has received from us, taken with our nature in time.

The Letter of Agatho, Pope of Old Rome, To the Emperor (On the occassion of the Sixth Ecumenical Council) pp. 330-331 of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Volume 14.

The monophysites were at the time making the accusation that the Orthodox doctrine meant Christ could have sinned - here, Pope Agatho clearly articulates that the Orthodox do not think this at all, and absolutely rejects the notion that the Divine and human wills could be opposed.

...just as the number of the natures of one and the same Christ, when considered and spoken of with piety, do not cause a division of the one Christ but merely bring out the fact that the difference between the natures is maintained even in the union, so it is with the number of wills and energies that belong essentially to his natures (For He was endowed with the powers of willing and energising in both natures, for the sake of our salvation) It does not introduce division: God forbid! but merely brings out the fact that the differences between them are safe-guarded and preserved even in the union. For we hold that wills and energies are faculties belonging to nature, not to subsistence; I mean those faculties of will and energy by which He Who wills and energises does so. For if we allow that they belong to subsistence, we will be forced to say that the three subsistence sof the Holy Trinity have different wills and different energies.

For it is to be noted that willing and the manner of willing are not the same thing. For to will is a faculty of nature, just as seeing is, for all men possess it; but the manner of willing does not depend on nature but on our judgment, just as does also the manner of seeing, whether well or ill. For all men do not will in the same way, nor do they all see in the same way. And this also we will grant in connection to energies. For the manner of willing, or seeing, or energising, is the mode of using the faculties of the will and sight and energy, belonging only to him who uses them, and marking him off from others by the generally accepted difference...

Since, then, Christ is one and His subsistence is one, He also Who wills both as God and as man is the same...

St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith Book III, Chapter 13, pp. 57-58 of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9.

The point being, of course, that the will and he who wills are not the same thing and while Christ has two wills and two natures, his subsistence is one, and contradiction between the wills or natures is inconcievable. The excerpt here doesn't do St. John's argument justice, I highly recommend reading the book (Book III of the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith)

St. Hilary of Poitiers deals with a related point - that Christ did not suffer human passions, the instance in question being Christ's tears, though the principle applies to all passions and all sin. My wrist is getting sore now (RSI) so I'm going to cut this short, but hopefully that clarifies the Orthodox position on whether or not Christ could have sinned!