REPLY TO A FUNDAMENTALIST

© 1996 by Orchid Land Publications

[last revised 19960831]

      Since you put 1 Pet. 3:15 forward as your guiding principle for discussing your faith in public, one awaits a logos (in the biblical sense of "reason" or "rationale) and an apoloyía ("reasoned defence") for the same old questions you always side-step. a strictly "wordy" response (mistranslating logos as "word" and apoloyia as "[wordy] reply")--namely, a response that was not loyikón "reasoned, logical"--would not be worth pursuing, let alone taking seriously. (the two terms just referred to are taken from the original greek of the passage which you assert to constitute your guiding principle.) till the reason and the reasoning response are provided, then, the real questions remain unanswered by you:

--how can your figurative (spiritualized) interpretation of John 6:48-58 (to take one salient example from among many more that one could cite) be held to be "literal" and biblical? (in other words, what criterion makes a non-literal understanding to be "literal" and biblical?) one can hardly be expected to cope with this because one can’t find any logos to explain why you or anyone else would indulge in such a contradictory use of ordinary words. indeed, even if one could, one could hardly see any point of telling me us it. it’s a such a core matter for you, as one gathers, you should be "ready with a reason" for it in accord with 1 Pet. 3:15; just asserting something (esp. if it’s an unexplained contradiction) is not doing that, is it?

--how can the bible be inerrant if the orthodox church, which assembled and ratified the New Testament in general use today--about the same time it similarly ratified the creed, with equal authority--is as inerrant as you’ve got to believe when you go against the our orthodox tradition? as it’s a core matter for you, you should be "ready with a reason" for it. but one can’t see anything here but a manifest contradiction. who can cope with that or even see why you would see any point in telling us about something that lies so far outside of any thought processes that one has previously been exposed to?

--why do say (as you have to say if you reject our beliefs as being in error) that the divine promise in John 16:13b remained in abeyance for a millennium and a half (till luther came along, if even then); why did He allow so many martyrs and confessors to suffer for a false faith? you cannot believe this without some grounds; what is your logos for such a fantastic view? one honestly doesn’t see how you expect anyone to deal with this. since autonomous interpretation is a core matter for you and is often stressed by you, you should presumably be "ready with a reason" for characterizing, clarifying, and defending it.

--how can an individual’s interpretations be true (i) if the Holy Spirit was promised to the faithful as a group in John 16:13b and (ii) when, out of every ten individuals, five to nine promote (over time) conflicting interpretations? can what is true be something that does not endure, something that changes every generation or so? how can anyone be expected to cope with this when one can’t find any logos (in general or in what you reveal) to explain why you or anyone else would hold such a view? saying that everyone’s view is true (something you don't say) would be the rankest relativism, wouldn’t it? but unless you claim private divine inspiration, why should anyone but you (or even you) risk one's future on your (or any other fallible individual's) views, especially when they contradict the consensus of the almost two-millennium-old inspired tradition? for it cannot be that Christ could have promised that all of those conflicting views are being guided by the Spirit "into all truth"? and you have provided no help for understanding it. isn’t what is true something that stays true over time, except of course things that depend on a given set of circumstances that change over time? as this has got to be a basic issue for you or anyone, isn’t it a matter that would seem to call for a "reason" in accord with 1 Pet. 3:15?

--how can the mediaeval (via moderna) philosophy of imputation (and all of its accompany theletist [will-based] treachings) be the right basis for interpretating and believing--IF (as is known to be the case) nothing like that philosophy was known in the first millennium? (only the accompanying gnostic aim and anti-ontological and antisacramental/incarnational spiritualism existed then.) if imputation is what salvation is, why go a round-about way and involve Jesus, when God could simply have (on the theletist view that underlies imputation, Scotist acceptation, and all of that) simply willed (predestinated) some to be saved and some not (as the reformers held)--i.e. without bringing in Jesus and his death (and resurrection) at all? what is your logos for why the incarnation is not superfluous in your imputational framework? doesn't it declare that by a mere act of will, God can declare this or that one saved--one ontologically unchanged--and even arbitrarily predestinate some to believe and to be declared righteous (saved) in this manner? just asserting substitutionary atonement is not enough. how does God's calling a sinner a non-sinner square with the fact that God does not lie (Hebrews 6:18)? this would seem to be something that falls within the admonition of 1 Pet. 3:15. anyhow, one can’t cope with it.

--how could a "faith" that has varied every generation or so (as philosophies have come and gone) and indeed to the extent that each form of it contradicts the other be true--let alone truer than the consistent consensus of the fathers across more than nineteen centuries? how can one cope with anyone who proclaims such a position--individualist or not? as this is a core epistemological consideration, you need to be "ready with a reason" for your answer in accord with your expressed adherence to 1 Pet. 3:15. at any rate, one doesn’t see how you could expect to convince us without giving a logos. but please don't bother if you think God is a "word" and that the "logos" called for is a mere congeries of words!

--even if, without offering any evidence, you assert that lógos meant "word" and not "creative reason" when referring to the second person of the most holy trinity, why--given that logos meant "creative reason" when used by thinkers in the first century with reference to the Creator of the cosmos--at all events is it so important to think God is a "Word"? Latin speakers translated logos as "sermon"--something luther and calvin should have loved! how have you shown that your view is right and that what scholars--e.g. philo, the stoics, etc.--meant by logos at the time of Jesus and the apostles is wrong? I don’t recollect your giving a logos (except a "word" or two) in deference to 1 Pet. 3:15. anyhow, how can one be expected to know how to deal with an unargued (unevidenced) assertion at complete variance with the known historical facts? how can one see the point in that?

--does the foregoing account for why denominationalists reverse their priorities by substituting the pulpit (human-addressed words) for the altar (God-addressed worship)? did not the author of the last book of the new testament, the apocalypse, portray the heavenly worship (with altar, prostrations, much incense, etc.) on the model and ideal of such christian worship as was known to him at the time? how can antitraditional worship be regarded as "biblical" in the light of this description (and others)? what is the rationale for the imbalances created by letting a preacher select what topics s/he prefers for a given service (instead of the balance provided by the ecclesiastical calendar); what is the rationale for allowing the preacher to select the words and styles s/he prefers for prayers offered communally?

--why do western christians exalt the crucifixion above the victory of the resurrection (which in eastern christianity is always foremost)? and why do denominationalists explicitly reject the biblical view that we are saved by the resurrection of our lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who trampled on death and by incorporation into His risen body makes us members of Him and eventual divinized? what can your logos be for this such an antitraditionalist view? what sort of apoloyia are your offering for this?

     To return to commonsense, how can a NON-LITERAL interpretation (like your interpretation of John 5:46-59 and many others passages) be either literal OR be known to be true? how can any figurative interpretation not consistently held to be such under the guidance of the Spirit-guided Church over for many centuries be thought true? how can "body" be interpreted as spirit the way you do--i.e. in respect to content rather than in mode of existing, being adapted to heavenly life? All of this naturally baffles us and certainly calls for a reason in accord with 1 Pet. 3:15.

     The orthodox of course espouse the conservative, traditional answer to the kind of reality that the bible takes for granted--the sacramental notion that matter and time are channels and vessels of spiritual reality; our bodies are sacraments of the spirit; Christ's humanity is a sacrament of his divinity. where your position rejects this in favor of the idea that what is willed or intented is greater, over-ruling ontological reality, we say with the apostles that religious reality includes both domains. that is why the resurrection of the body has got to be, why the church has got to have sacramental continuity in time as well as having a timeless spiritual side, why the communion of saints exists--i.e. why the departed members of the body as well as the living ones can be asked to pray for us, and we can and should pray for them too. that is why worship is the oblation or return of a perfect part of creation to God, as Christ did on the first great only pascha; in short, why the bread and wine become our offering of Christ’s body and blood and not just his spirit; etc.--which you reduced to its humanward side in "communion" four times a year--not even easter unless it happens to fall on a sunday.

     Didn't God see that the Logos-created a material-spiritual universe was "good," as the early chapters of Genesis affirm? what has changed that to make materiality of no religious use in your opinion--a very gnostic view censured from the earliest apostolic days? what is your apology for that? if anything has happened to make a material Incarnation, material sacraments, a material church in time, and bodily resurrecgtion no longer tenable or at least important and relevant, why not at least tell us why?

     Didn’t the Incarnation of God as a true human being reconsecrate the material cosmos sufficiently for God to be able to attach a promise to some temporal acts and material things? what is the "reason" (1 Pet. 3:15 again) why that is not the right christian view? since the conservative sacramental view of reality is contrary to your radical and innovatory presuppositional framework (based on the late-mediaeval via media), how can you think it apostolic in spirit? what is your reason? your views should be easy enough to clear up if they make a modicum of sense, so why not do as 1 Pet. 3:15 calls on you to do and as you say you do do in accord with it?

     The One Who rose from the dead would scarcely tell us that your focus on the words of the pulpit and human salvation and other human things should be allowed the usurp, in quality or quantity, Godward worship? or that a single preacher should be allowed to dictate unbalanced themes for each service (chosen arbitrarily out of his favorite topics) and the content (equally unbalanced and errant) as well as tone and style of public prayers? if you disagree, do state your logos and apology. as your last writing did not (in a public letter) mention TRINITY, CREATION, INCARNATION, GRACE, RESURRECTION or "partaking of the divine nature" (our salvific end in divinization; 2 pet. 1:4b), can you inform us why in any convincing way? what are your rationale and apology for this hardly biblical imbalance? is not Grace basic enough to be mentioned in everything a Christian says about the faith to unbelievers--who, after all, hold many of the same views as we do about right and wrong, whatever conclusions different parties may draw from those premises in a given situation? shouldn’t the glorious resurrection, celebrated on the chief feast day of the faith(great holy pascha), be the first theme of what one says to unbelievers? should the apostolic emphasis on the resurrection of the body be emulated in such a context? how can salvation and paradise have any meaning for half a human—-a disembodied (St.Paul said "naked") soul? if that was good enough for the gnostics, it never was for christians—or do you have evidence, biblical or otherwise, to the contrary?

     If one can’t cope with your views cited above, it is because one can’t find any logos to explain why anyone would indulge in such bizarre "logic" and contradictory uses of ordinary words as to say that a non-literal interpetation is a literal one, etc. indeed, even if one could see another’s point in asserting such inargued conundrums, we cannot see any real point in telling us about such.

[The following is abstracted from The biblical basis of Orthodox Christian beliefs, copyright 1996 by Orchid Land Publications.]

     The Orthodox Apostolic Catholic Faith is consistent in the items it affirms and disavows. It is a Faith that has proved simple enough for a peasant in Syria, Greece, Russia, or Serbia to understand in its basic tenets; even an American highschool graduate who can read should be able to grasp these basic tenets--beliefs that have taken the holiest and keenest intellects of the ages to work out:

     The Divine Logos is eternally generated and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father alone, the Font of all being, as co-equal divine Persons in the single Essence of the most holy Trinity. GOD created a material world—one inhabited, after the creation of the ani-mals, by human beings who also have souls in a body-souled Mystery of Sacrament—endowed originally with the Icon or Image of GOD and with the Likeness of GOD (the divine Life and Energy of Grace). But our first ancestors sinned, lost immortality, and, because of their loss of the Grace of the divine Likeness, could not longer worship adequately or please GOD enough to be able to save themselves; they retained the reason and the freewill of the Icon of GOD, for without reason and freedom both sin and virtue would not be possible; but these powers were greatly weakened without the help of Grace.

     In due time, the Creator Logos became completely human, (as the opening verses of the Gospel according to St. John say) without ceasing to be completely divine, in order to save humanity by restoring the Likeness of GOD to it and renewing the cosmos. The Creator-Logos, God the Son, assumed human nature (as one Person, the Logos) in Jesus, the Son of Mary the Virgin, in order to realize in the created world the fulfillment of the Old Covenant Law of Worship and Moral Law, so that a perfect Offering could be rendered to God in human nature. Having humbled Himself to our status through His birth by the most holy Mother of God, Christ made our Salvation possible through His Sacrifice of Himself in undergoing the defeat of the Crucifixion and chiefly in His victorious Resurrection, when He defeated the devil and the powers of evil. Our Salvation lies in Divinization (2 Pet. 1:4b), though mysteric or sacramental incorporation into Christ’s risen Body as members of that Body and in the Vision of the uncreated Light of God--the ontological Energies of the divine Nature. (We are not partakers of the divine Essence, which is imparticipable!) John 6:48-56 shows that we become Christ’s members by partaking of Him in the Mystery of Mysteries--the Holy Communion, the humanward part of the Eucharist, whose chief aspect is Worship—the Offering of a perfect creature to the Creator in acknowledgment that everything belongs to Him. Humans—and in particular, children—do not inherit the sins of Eve and Adam; but humans (including our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ) have the inherited defect of dying. The message of the Holy Gospel is that there is no pleasing God (John 15:5d) and no Grace without Christ; without the Grace (John 3:27) of Christ, there is no Salvation (John 3:16, Acts 4:12, etc.), no Salvation apart from Christ—i.e. for any except the members of Christ’s risen Body.

     From the beginning, the Church offered Worship (with a big "W": latreía) only to GOD and to the consecrated eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ, inseparably united with His Divinity. From the beginning, the records show that Worship (including the prayers which the holy Apostles attended in the Temple, the origin of our non-eucharistic Hour services) was centered on the most holy Eucharist--the divine Liturgy. A lesser reverence (douleía or worship with a small "w") is offered to holy places, and Crosses and icons, as well as to the Saints and their relics, and above all to the most holy Bearer of GOD (who receives hyperduly). Public prayers may not depend on the whims, abilities, and tastes of a preacher; they must represent the consensus of the Saints across the ages and the balance of topics that that consensus provides.

     The Orthodox believe that we can have no knowledge of the divine Essence--Being beyond being--except as far as we can infer from revelation and indeed reason as to what GOD is not--what would contradict the very idea of GOD. We can, however, know much about GOD’s nature and Energies through their operation in the cosmos and through revelations inspired by the Holy Paraclete. In the latter fourth century, the Church settled on the collection of books that constitute the inspired canon of re-vealed Scripture and on the Creed. (Their status as inspired depends on the Church’s inspiration; see John 16:13b; contrast the status of private interpretations in 2 Pet. 1:20—and see Eph. 4:14). Where 28,000 denominations exhibit inconsistent private interpretations, no one knows which one among contradictory notions is true, though all but (at most) one are false. The consensus of the almost two-thousand-year-old tradition, however, of which the Orthodox Bible remains the chief and normative part, is the true Faith that John 16:13b refers to. If Orthodoxy rejects a static (timeless) creation, one not still going on, a revelation not given in time and still unfolding new insights on the original core of belief is also alien to it. Those that reject time reject tradition; but tradition has a "progressive" sense among the Latins--one that recognizes new additions that supposedly follow from what was there before. Rejecting this sense, the Orthodox accept a "developmental" sense that acknowledges more insights into the Faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3, where the verb, "was delivered," is a form of the same base found in the noun for "tradition").

     Inasmuch as the Creator Logos became incarnate to make time and matter mysteric vehicles or sacraments of matter--the Incarnation being the first Mystery or Sacrament, the one that all of the others depend on for their efficacy--it is a denial of the Incarnation to think that Salvation comes about through means that are not partly material--although matter is only a vehicle or channel of heavenly reality of Grace, the Life of Christ. As we cannot enjoy heaven or suffer in hell without our bodies, they have got to rise again before the final Judgment by Christ; we thus get reconstituted as complete body-souled human beings. We no more become Angels than devils at death; human beings are of a different kind from such unbodied denizens of heaven and hell.

     The true Church has therefore got an essential tempo-ral and material side as well as a spiritual side; those bodies that have broken away or otherwise lost sacramen-tal continuity with the Apostles’ Church are not churches. The Orthodox reject that Gnostic disdain for matter and time which posits no value for a (sacramental) tradition. And letting human cocerns like Salvation, human needs, and so on become more important than Worship GOD--in short, prioritizing the human-addressing pulpit (and words) over the GOD-addressed Altar and its act of perfect Offering, even ousting it altogether . . . all of this is foreign to the Orthodox. This heterodox reversal of priorities is as much an anti-Copernican revolution as has been the Reformation reduction of an infrequent Eucharist to the hu-man-ward benefits of Holy Communion. The Orthodox believe that Christ is the true Offerer and Priest in His members, the One Who offers the perfect Oblation of Hiimself in the most holy eucharistic Sacrifice when the faithful offer It. Calvary cannot be repeated, but we can re-offer Christ’s perfect Offering by offering up His true Body and Blood in the most holy Mysteries.

     The Body of Christ exists in heaven among the Saints and on earth; it is the Bride of Christ, the pillar and bulwark of the truth, and the Ark of Salvation. Preëminently in Orthodoxy, the beauty of holiness shines forth in the Worship of GOD and in the lives of her Saints. As the Communion of Saints is unsevered by death, the faithful living ask the departed Saints for their prayers, just as we ask living Christians to pray for us; and we pray for those fallen asleep. Sinless infants receive the Holy Chrism and (at Holy Baptism and at the Liturgy on the Lordsday and each major festival) the Holy Communion; they also receive the other Mysteries (Sacraments). Nor in most jurisdictions are infants denied Christian burial when they die unbaptized. (See Jesus’s words in Mat. 19:14 and parallels in other Gospels.) There is no pope--no patriarch having universal authority in the Orthodox Church. Nor are those doctrines admitted--let alone as being necessary for Salvation--that were invented by the Latins after their cutting themselves off from the true Church--e.g. purgatory (an expiatory state between death and the final resurrection) and indulgences (the transfer of Saints' merits through papal fiat). Various pious beliefs about the most holy Theotókos are permitted and even fostered, but none are required for Salvation except to acknowledge (with Luke 1:43b in the original Semitic language) that she is the Virgin Mother of God—i.e. Mother of the One Who is God as well as human. For to deny this denies the Incarnation, as also does a denial of the spiritual worth of hallowed (two-dimensional or "non-graven") images, Crosses, holy water, holy bread, holy oil, vestments, candles, and other sacramentals. These are adjuncts to prayer for us Orthodox, not mere functionless prettifications, as among Denominationalists. We believe in Angels, Cherubim, and Seraphim as well as in miracles. We believe that there will be a "glorious appearing" of Christ when He will judge the living and dead, separating the sheep and the goats for their blessed and woeful everlasting destinies. Seeing Him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12b), we will become like him (1 John 3:2c-e). It is the unending consequences of what we believe and do in this life that give infinite worth to our deeds in this life.

     The holy Mysteries or Sacraments have subjective and objective conditions attached to the divine promises. Subjectively, prior conditions are right belief (see manifold references in "Part one" under point 5) and repentance of one’s sins; the postcondition for retaining Grace and receiving more (John 1:16b) is obedience to Christ through the guidance of the Holy Spirit (see 1 John 3:9-10, Gal. 5:6b, and manifold references in "Part one" under point 5). Objectively, a Mystery must be validly performed by a valid priest; but for its promises to be secure, i.e. for it to be authentic, it must be administered in the one true Orthodox Church. Baptism is the bath of re-birth (Tt. 3:5), being born again (John 3:3b-c,5b-c), the remission of sins and the necessary beginning of Salvation as a member of Christ filled with His life-giving Energy--Grace. When they are not monks, deacons and Orthodox parish priests are married; bishops therefore are drawn from the monastic orders, though at times a widowed priest may be consecrated.

     If Worship and contemplating God (see Luke 10:42) form the foremost part of piety, then monasticism (see Mat. 19:29) is an essen-tial part of Christianity. Like Worship and contemplation, the other parts of Christian piety are based on love (1 Cor. 13:13b and many Johannine passages cited in "Part one" under point 10). This piety has got a positive side—viz. doing good to others in loving obedience to God and in spreading the Gospel according to our callings; and it has a negating side, ascetic self-denial in fasting and giving up the works of the flesh as well as in not arrogating to ourselves a superiority over the consentient Fathers in interpreting Scripture. Orthodoxy does not think that God promised us a rose garden in this life and is therefore not a "feel-good" religiosity that thinks any god is all right as long as one subscribes to at least one. Our true religion nevertheless is a religion that eminently fulfills our true nature.

      The Apostle Peter was the first Orthodox bishop at Antioch in Syria before he (or, as far as anyone knows, any Christians) ever went to Rome. When the Latins broke off in the eleventh-century schism from the Apostolic Orthodox Church, they began inventing novel doctrines and practices that have no claim what-soever to being Orthodox or part of the true Church’s true Faith. Any ecumenical coöperation must be based on not denying this; otherwise, it will militate against the true Faith.

                                                                Yours en Christô,

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