Christ is risen!
Dear OOD,
OrthodoxyOrDeath wrote:Well I think there is a difference between "could have sinned" and "did sin" (ie. having passions). I think you agree.
I would agree with the difference you posit, but would not agree that "having passions" = "did sin". The passions we struggle with, the temptations we wage spiritual battle against, all of these can lead us to sin, but experiencing them in and of themselves is not sin, or else our Lord, too, was a sinner, and we have no hope.
I think you are right when you say this about "sinful passions", except I think of it a little different than you. First, I don't believe there are always "good" versions of a passion; for instance, lust. But it is true enough that many times there are good versions of a passion, such as hate; and there are "bad" versions of virtues, such as "love". But in either case, I just don't think of a "good" version of a passion as being a "passion", I think of it as a virtue. So we have "love" which can be a virtue and "love" which can be a passion.
I suppose we could define things in this way, I've just never seen it done before.
To use your example of lust, lust is an inordinate desire for sexual pleasure. The definition seems to imply that there is an "ordinate" desire for sexual pleasure, and even in the Orthodox wedding service (which I attended most recently a few hours ago), we affirm that the marriage bed is undefiled. I don't think a husband and wife engaged or about to engage in intercourse are sinning, and neither does the Church. Clearly, there is some "holy" (for lack of a better term) opposite to lust, when it is in the proper context, and this, I would suggest, is the "good passion" which is given to us by God for the continuation of the human race. Now, if they were not married, then we know where that is going. The same could be said, I think, for any of the "passions".
So the questions becomes: did Christ laugh in the sense that it was a virtue? Can laughter be a virtue? Intially one might think "yes, of course", but I think on further reflection you you can see that laughter is really loosing control of yourself. How can we pray unceasingly when we loose control of ourselves? Always having control of oneself is a fundemental element of monasticism and Orthodoxy in general.
Now if you said Christ smiled, I would agree with that; with no teeth showing of course. :mrgreen:
Well, aside from the fact that laughter is, as others have noted, not simply and not always a loosing control of yourself which is not conducive to hesychasm, I find it interesting that I, the "monophysite" around here, am defending something which my creed is allegedly supposed to disagree with, while you (the "Orthodox") seem to be arguing for a monophysite Christ, even when you do pay lip service to the council of Chalcedon's doctrinal statements (and this is not the first time this has happened).
We certainly cannot prove that Christ laughed--nor can we prove that He didn't (St. John the Theologian tells us that there are many things we do not know about because they weren't written down). But I think it's dangerous to insist that Christ did not laugh as if it was a dogmatic issue. First, it cannot be proven (and I've already granted that the opposite cannot be proven). Second, I don't think there is any consensus that laughter is always and everywhere a sinful passion. Third, if Jesus could've sinned (and I believe this is what some of you told me some time ago), then I don't see why it would hurt your worldview to admit that Jesus "could've laughed". Saying that He definitely did not poses a contradiction.
I can sympathise with the desire to keep Jesus sacred, and not let Him be turned into "just one of the guys", as so many these days are wont to do. But, without taking it as far as they misguidedly do, there is a sense in which He did become "just one of the guys", since He is perfect man, having become incarnate for us by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. He is perfect God, of course; I'm not trying to say anything other than that we need to be careful of how much we "defend" Him, lest we find ourselves forgetting the big picture.
I would think that Christ, as a perfect man, would have been laughing a lot in his attempts to deal with the fallen men around him.
Anastasios,
Quite frankly, I think Christ would laugh at this thread. Tom's piece of satire about his son was so funny I sinned "in stitches".
