Problems arise on cross-confessional lists areise because of several reasons--some people have not been trained to argue, some attack persons rather than ideas (perhaps out of frustration),  etc.  But a chief cause of some harsh words is not necessarily ill-will but frustration on the part of some who cannot get out of their cognitive box for a moment to see what the other is saying--or on the part of someone who can do this but has got to deal with someone who cannot.  Discussions across conflicting thought worlds are subject to an acute problem that I have discussed at times.  Frustration arises less from illwill than because A asks evidence and B provides it but A reads it in a contrary manner without, it may be, either A or B's realizing why.

     Cross-paradigm discussions require more guidelines than wide-open endoparadigm discussions.  They also require a neutral metalanguage or a metalanguage coding.   One such device was suggested decades ago, before the form of linguistics that prevails today arose.  Korzybsky suggested that people who use terms or expressions in a technical, or least paradigm-specific, sense should be required to use specialized "quotations marks."  This makes clear to oneself and to one's interlocutors how specific (non-general) a given usage is.  Thus, &Grace&, %Grace%, and #Grace#--which one would have to characterize, or really define, when called on to do so--could represent the three paradigm-defined views of Grace in Eastern and Western Christianity.  It would certainly avoid a lot of wasted time and bad tempers caused less by ill-will than by frustration.  

     The device just suggested  would have another great benefit.  If one used the same specialized quotation marks to set off other terms in a given paradigm,  one could not avoid introducing an element of systematization into what one says.   Some list minds might be pleasantly surprised at why #Grace#, #Salvation," and #unity with God's Essence# have the same marks in a will-based juridical framework  This would assist list mentalities see what the systematic interconnectedness of a set of ideas is, why, e.g. the Reformers' &Grace% (as uncreated Energy) and &Salvation& (ontological Salvation) and &unity with the uncreated divine Energies& not only go together but cannot be reconciled with #Grace# and #unity with God's uncreated Essence# . . . and why the latter approximates the Latins' %unity with God% but not %Grace%.  (The reason of course is that the two Western paradigms both have a juridical "form," though The Latin paradigm  is based on intellect and th'other is based on will, and the Latin paradigm has sacramental "matter" whereas the Reformation has Gnostic or anti-sacramental "matter"--and is hence in even greater conflict with the Eastern energy-ontology paradigm. 

     One must not expect much knowlege of technical theological terms from seminarians.  This applies to those of all persuasions, even though the Orthodox are less taken with what passes for contemporary philosophy than Western seminaries have on offer--if they offer anything other than a mistranslated Bible.   

     I really believe that it is not ill-will that creates these frustrating impasses.  I am convinced that those who don't know how to argue would feel less frustrated (and ditto for those they exchange words with) if some guidelines were imposed--not simply guidelines like " Don't be ad hominem," which are of course necessary--that would force their comments and the general discourse into more acceptable confines circumscribed by parameters laid down by moderators.

SEE ALSO R306#mind-fix

  SEE ALSO R287#proposal   

SEVEN TEACHINGS HELD BY THE ORTHODOX

BUT NOT GENERALLY BY WESTERN CHRISTIANS

1. For the Orthodox, infants do not inherit Adam’s guilt or sin; and “merits” are not transferable (by an indulgence or otherwise) from one person to another.  The Orthodox do not teach a substitutionary, let alone an imputative, view of Christ's work on earth; rather, as the New Testament teaches, there is a real (ontic) unity of worshipers with Christ through their sharing His uncreated Life and Energies (Grace), in which His goodness and all that He has done for humanity’s sake is shared by His members.  This is called Divinization (Théōsis); it differs from a pagan Deification (Apothé­ōsis) in not involving a union of essences.

2. The soul is not immortal by nature (but only by Grace); the Resurrection of the soul takes place at Baptism (or, in the case of the Old Testament Saints, during Christ’s sojourn in Hades).  The necessary Resurrection of the flesh will take place on the last day, though the all-holy Theotókos had a special proleptic resurrection after her body, following her death,  had been carried off by Angels.

3. Jesus is YHWH (as He affirmed in John 8:58, and as St. Elizabeth stated in Luke 1:43); his pre-Incarnational appearances took place in the Garden of Eden, at the giving of the Decalogue, in the fiery furnace, etc.  [I have learned that some Evangelicals agree with this Orthodox teaching.]  Since the Creator is the LOGOS or Reason of God for St. John the Theologian and Evangelist (St. Paul called the Creator the WISDOM of God; wisdom is of course practical reason), the cosmos is logikós ("intelligible")—which is the basis of modern science.   St. Maximos the Confessor taught that created things contained lógoi, rational traces that mirror the Reason or LOGOS of God, the Creator Who made the cosmos logikós in creating it.

4. God did not do something so counternatural as to impose  death on the human beings He had created (Yezekiel 33:11; cf. 18:32 and I Timothy 2:4); He let satan impose death to forestall anyone’s sinning perpetually. 

5. The basis of reality in Orthodoxy is energy (as it was conceived in the centuries before and after Christ's Life on earth); since the cosmos is energetic, it (as Great Holy Vasil taught) is evolving from simpler to more complex.  

6. Revelation takes places through real time, not in a virtual development that assumes it was all there at the beginning and is only apprehended over time.  Though the few dogmas do not change, the doctrines or teachings that energize them with meaning build on one another over time consistently with what has gone before.  Time thus plays an essential  revelatory rôle.¹  

7. The all-holy Trinity is differently conceived.  Among the several basic differences is the way the divine Unity is conceived.  The Orthodox holy Tradition holds the unity of the Trinity to be based on the Father as the Source of all being (though the Son or Reason and Wisdom of God created every created thing, as taught by St. John and St. Paul).  The West finds the divine Unity in the one Essence, unlike the East deriving the all-holy Spirit from both Father and Son.  It is an Eastern personalist view vs. a Western substant­ialist view. 
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 1}Though most Protestants do not accept development in doctrine, the 

Latins accept virtual development:  The Orthodox take what St. Gregory 
the Theologian of Nazianzós said (Sermon 31.27 ) to refer to new revelations; the Latins interpret this in their framework as referring to theologians’ new insights.  This is virtual develo­pment, not the real development of the Orthodox!