Salvation, East and West

In the last post about my faith journey, I described the theological controversy around the meaning of salvation by faith alone that I encountered while in college. Although I came to a few conclusions on the subject, I had not resolved it satisfactorily when I encountered the Eastern Orthodox church over 15 years later. The Orthodox ended up helping me see the question from a different perspective.

What I found was that Eastern Christianity was not so focused on sin and forgiveness as much as a new kind of life and the transformation of our natures. Salvation is a process called theosis, which is being changed from our fallen human condition into sons of God, brothers and sisters of our Lord, transformed into his image, and partakers of the divine nature. We enter into this new life by faith, but our initial response of faith is just the beginning of this life of transformation. We receive the Holy Spirit, who works in our spirits, and we commune with God through prayer. However, we are not just spiritual beings; we are also physical. Therefore God makes use of physical means such as the sacraments to transform us. Our changed nature is reflected in the way we live our lives.

In short, the life of discipleship is not optional for a Christian, but the very path of transformation that saves us from a life of self-destruction, and brings us into eternal life. Heaven is not so much a reward for believing the right thing, but the fulfillment and completion of a supernatural life that begins in this life. What I found in Eastern Orthodoxy was that faith, good works, the work of the Holy Spirit, and salvation, were all intertwined in a dynamic relationship with God.

I read a booklet by Bp. Kallistos Ware where he responded to the Evangelical question, "are you saved?" He said that he was saved by Jesus on the cross; he is being saved now as he grows in his relationship with Christ; and his hope is to experience the completion of salvation in heaven. Notice that heaven is his hope, not his guarantee. He knows that he freely entered into this relationship with Christ, and he could freely leave it, even as a bishop. Apostasy and turning to a life of sin is always a possibility for any Christian in this life, so we must be vigilant so that we don't drift away. Don't get me wrong, God does not easily let go of us; he wants our salvation more than we do. However, he does respect our free will, and it is possible for a Christian to get so caught up in the world and sin that he prefers it to God, and is in danger of destruction.

That's my quick sketch of the Eastern Orthodox view of salvation as I understand it. What surprised me years later was that this was very similar to the Catholic view. Indeed, the worldwide Catholic Church includes Eastern Catholic churches whose theology of salvation is no different than the Eastern Orthodox. When you get to Western Catholic theology, there is more of an emphasis on sin, punishment, and forgiveness. Western categories are more distinct, and Western theologians try to nail down answers to questions that Eastern theologians prefer to leave unanswered. Western theologians use the term "sanctifying grace" to talk about the presence of God that accomplishes theosis. They use the term "mortal sin" to describe the kind of act that completely kills our relationship with God, and "venial sin" to describe an act that damages but does not kill the life of God within us. Eastern Christians recognize both kinds of effects of sin, but they are reluctant to categorize things in that way.

Nevertheless, Catholic theology recognizes that we need the grace of God to forgive our sins and to lift us up into the life of God. We respond to God's work in us by faith, and so cooperate with him. In other words, God will not change us if we don't want him too. We, in ourselves, can add nothing to what God does, but we can say "yes" to the offer of Christ to live his life through us. As in the Eastern view, there are physical as well as spiritual means through which God works in us. Although there are lots of activities involved in the Catholic walk of faith, known as works of charity, they are all actually works of Christ, because it is Christ who does them through us.

Well, these are huge topics, which I've barely touched on. I hope, however, it clarifies things a little bit. Please feel free to ask specific questions, and I'll see if I can find some answers.

Christ and the "Dying Gods"

Happy Easter, everyone!

I am using a new search engine, duckduckgo.com. I typed in "C. S. Lewis dying god" and this popped up in the "red box" instant results at the top.

Christian mythology: Comparative mythology: Christ and the "Dying Gods"

The more recent writer C. S. Lewis regarded the pagan "dying gods" as premonitions in the human mind of the Christ story that was to come. Pope Benedict XVI expressed a similar opinion in his 2006 homily for Corpus Christi: "The Lord mentioned [wheat's] deepest mystery on Palm Sunday, when some Greeks asked to see him. In his answer to this question is the phrase: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit' (Jn 12: 24). [...] Mediterranean culture, in the centuries before Christ, had a profound intuition of this mystery. Based on the experience of this death and rising they created myths of divinity which, dying and rising, gave new life. To them, the cycle of nature seemed like a divine promise in the midst of the darkness of suffering and death that we are faced with. In these myths, the soul of the human person, in a certain way, reached out toward that God made man, who, humiliated unto death on a cross, in this way opened the door of life to all of us." There have been some modern attempts to discredit the notion of a general "dying god" category of which Christ is a member. More at Wikipedia

I did the search because I remembered how C. S. Lewis, when he was an atheist, believed that Christianity was just another "dying god" myth. However, he came to wonder why there were so many dying god myths in human cultures, and came to believe that they were all premonitions of an actual event that was so cosmic in its scope, reaching across space and time, that it made a deep impression in the human psyche, even before it played out in human history.

The first link brought me this quote:

“In the New Testament, the thing really happens. The Dying God really appears—as a historical Person, living in a definite place and time. . . . The old myth of the Dying God . . . comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens— at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We must not be nervous about ‘parallels’ [in other religions] . . . : they ought to be there—it would be a stumbling block if they weren’t.”

By the way, I think DuckDuckGo (DDG) is the first serious alternative to Google. One of their biggest selling points is that they don't track you like Google does. They also make a bigger effort to keep out spam, which I like. I also like their nice user interface. Give it a try!

The Lord descends into hell

From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday

Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

Make a Friar

A few weeks ago, I saw a young man speak at my parish, Patrick Gothman, who is in the process of joining the Little Brothers of the Lamb, a missionary branch of the Dominican order based in France, and operating in several countries around the world. This branch not only sees St. Dominic as their spiritual father, as do all Dominicans, but they also look to St. Francis of Assisi as a spiritual father. I find this remarkable because Dominic and Francis lived at the same time and started similar reform movements, but the orders which resulted from their work have often been at odds with each other. The Little Brothers and Sisters of the Lamb appear to take the best of both movements, and have the potential to be an effective reform movement in the Church. They have fully the adopted the mendicant practice that characterized these movements in the beginning by trusting God to provide for them day by day through the gifts of others.

Patrick has set up a website about his vocation not only to inform, but also to raise some money he needs to pay off student loans before he enters religious life. If you would like to learn more about Patrick, the Community of the Lamb, and possibly help him out, check out www.makeafriar.com.

Theological Controversy

My faith journey began with a conviction that the Bible was a book from God. In the last thirty years I have never seriously doubted the truth of that conviction, but questions about the origin of the Bible and how it should be interpreted have been more difficult to answer. Related to those questions was the problem of the many Christian denominations.

Our family had been going to a Presbyterian church since I was in fourth grade, but my High School friends went to a Bible church. My friends stressed the importance of the doctrine that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and without error (inerrant), so I asked the Christian Education director at my Presbyterian church if "we" believed the Bible was inspired. His answer was that it depended on what I meant by inspired. He said that the events of the Bible were inspired, but not every word was inspired because there were obviously errors in the Bible. My teenage mind quickly came to the conclusion that this disagreement was at the root of the denominational problem, and I decided the inerrancy side was correct. I thought that if I stayed with churches that believed the Bible, I would have all of the right answers.

Such a strategy served me well through most of my Freshman year at A&M. In the Spring semester, I took a discipleship course from Dwight, the college minister at Grace Bible Church. We studied Paul's second letter to Timothy in depth, and I was getting a lot out of it. I had a friend, Brett, who was taking an advanced discipleship class from Dwight that Spring, and as the semester progressed, Brett and his friend Mike were getting into arguments about some of the things Dwight was teaching. I dismissed their argument as nitpicking over trivialities, and did not get involved. The year ended, and we went our separate ways to Houston and Dallas.

When we came back to school after summer was over, Brett and Mike had resolved their differences, and agreed that Dwight's teaching was wrong and dangerous. The issue had to do with the relationship of faith and works in salvation, and the fact that they had come to agreement against Dwight caught my attention. Dwight was going to teach an advanced discipleship course that semester that would study the epistle of James. I knew that James dealt with the theme of faith and works, so I decided taking that course would be a great way to get to the bottom of this question.

What I thought would be the relevant passage did not begin until chapter 2, verse 14. Since we were covering the epistle verse-by-verse, I expected the issue would come up later in the course. However, I did not have that long to wait. We hit verse 12 of chapter 1, and the problem came to the surface. It reads, "Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him." Dwight taught that the "crown of life" was an extra reward given by God to Christians who endure trial. He made a point that James was not speaking of salvation because salvation is obtained by faith alone, and does not require enduring any trials.

Dwight was working on a degree at Dallas Theological Seminary during the summers, and he was a proponent of the teaching of one of the professors, Zane Hodges. This teaching was an attempt to make the most of the Reformation doctrine of salvation by faith alone. A difficulty with salvation by faith alone is that the New Testament makes a lot of demands that can appear to be related to salvation. Hodges dealt with this difficulty by making a distinction between salvation, which leads to heaven, and discipleship, which results in rewards. Salvation was by faith alone, and caused a person to be forgiven of their sins, saved from punishment in hell, and gives him the gift of eternal life in heaven. After a person was saved by faith, they could optionally become a disciple, which involved commitment, endurance, good works, and much of the other directive teaching of the New Testament. To the extent that a believer practiced discipleship, they would receive additional rewards in heaven.

So, Dwight concluded that the "crown of life" in James 1:12 was one of these additional rewards because it was connected with enduring trials, which he considered additional to saving faith. I had two problems with his interpretation. First of all, I thought it very possible that "crown of life" could be a poetic way of describing eternal life. Second was that James said this crown was promised by God "to those who love him." It seemed to me that love of God should be connected with being a Christian. I pointed this out to Dwight, and he flatly rejected it. He said that there were many times he did not love God. Did that mean he lost his salvation at those times? I did not have an answer, but Dwight seemed wrong to me, and I saw why my friends thought his teaching was dangerous.

I quit the discipleship class, and at the suggestion of a friend, took up my own personal study of John's first epistle. I don't remember who suggested it, but it was the perfect thing for me to study at that time in relation to this question. The epistle is full of "if" statements which I pieced together to get a big picture of what John was talking about. For example, the first one is "If we say we have fellowship with him [God] while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1:6-7). In the first "if" statement, John says fellowship with God is incompatible with walking in darkness. Is fellowship with God salvation or discipleship? It's hard to know looking at the one statement, but the second "if" statement is connected, and it equates walking in the light with fellowship with one another and being cleansed from all sin. Being cleansed from sin would definitely be connected with salvation. By looking at many more of these "if" statements in 1 John, I pieced together a picture of the Christian life in which the concepts that Dwight called salvation and discipleship were intimately intertwined. According to 1 John, it was impossible to be saved and not be a disciple. The danger of Dwight's teaching was that someone might choose to not take the discipleship option and think they were saved, but be deceived.

I went into such detail on this controversy for two reasons. The first was it showed me that just believing in the truth of the Bible was not sufficient for unity of belief. Two people could sincerely believe the Bible and interpret it differently, even on important issues of how someone is saved. The second is that I would continue to struggle with this issue for the next seventeen years until I discovered the Eastern Orthodox perspective on this question. The Orthodox and Catholic doctrines of salvation, which I believe are two sides of the same coin, make sense of everything the Bible teaches on salvation, whereas the various Protestant doctrines I explored in the intervening years would each fit with certain Bible verses, but would have problems with others.

Welcome to Aggieland

I was very excited to be going to Texas A&M. I was excited about living "on my own" in a dorm, making new friends, and studying Engineering. I felt like this was the beginning of my adult life, and there was a world of excitement and opportunity ahead of me.

However, I had this new faith that I wanted to nurture, and I was well aware that college was a place where people often lost their faith. Therefore, I resolved to go to church my first Sunday in College Station, and start a weekly habit. Since my friends who had led me to Christ went to a Bible Church, and I had enjoyed visiting their church, I looked in the phone book for a Bible Church in College Station. I found Grace Bible Church, which was not too far away. I found out the times for Sunday School and the Worship Service, and made my plans.

On Sunday morning, I started out early walking to my car, which was parked far away in the Freshman parking lot. I had been on campus for several days, and had not used my car since it was so far away. When I reached my 1974 Chevy Vega, I found it had two flat tires. Now one flat tire I could have changed and been only a little late to Sunday School, but not with two. I saw this as a test, and I resolved to not be overcome by this obstacle, so I began walking to the church. I think it took about 45 minutes for me to get there, and I arrived as Sunday School was almost over.

I snuck into a crowded classroom where every seat was taken, and many were standing along the wall at the back when I recognized a face. Danny, who had graduated from my high school a year earlier, saw me also and welcomed me. After class he invited me to join him at the worship service, and we sat together. I liked Grace Bible Church; it had a similar intellectual feel that had experienced at Mesquite Bible Church, and there were lots of college students there. The college minister, Dwight, was a very good teacher and was very popular with the students.

Having overcome the obstacles to going to church my first Sunday, I got my two tires fixed, and was ready to go back to Grace the next Sunday. I lived on the fourth floor of my dorm, and as I was going down the stairs, Bible in hand, I met another student going down stairs carrying a Bible. We talked and found out we were both going to Grace, and since he, Ted, had an upperclassman parking permit, he offered to give me a ride.

Through Ted, I met several other students who were active in their faith, and soon I was in a network of friends who encouraged me to grow deeper in my faith, whether through formal meetings such as Sunday worship, Thursday night college fellowship, and a dorm Bible study, or just through eating together and hanging out together. 

I had been concerned about losing my new Christian faith at a secular university, but instead I found an incubator in which it could grow and develop. My Freshman year was primarily a time of learning and just soaking things in. In my Sophomore year, however, I would encounter some challenges.

God’s Word is an Inexhaustible Spring of Life

I am taking a break to share a quote I read today from St. Ephrem of Syria, who lived in the 4th century. Even though I just discovered this quote, it describes what I began to experience as a young adult as I began to study the Bible. I remember having discussions with friends in college about how we would come back to a passage that we had read in the past, and see new things we hadn't previously noticed. I can testify now 30 years later that my experience of the Bible continues to be as a spring of life that never runs dry.

Lord, who can comprehend even one of your words? We lose more of it than we grasp, like those who drink from a living spring. For God’s word offers different facets according to the capacity of the listener, and the Lord has portrayed his message in many colors, so that whoever gazes upon it can see in it what suits him. Within it he has buried manifold treasures, so that each of us might grow rich in seeking them out.

The word of God is a tree of life that offers us blessed fruit from each of its branches. It is like that rock which was struck open in the wilderness, from which all were offered spiritual drink. As the Apostle says: They ate spiritual food and they drank spiritual drink.

And so whenever anyone discovers some part of the treasure, he should not think that he has exhausted God’s word. Instead he should feel that this is all that he was able to find of the wealth contained in it. Nor should he say that the word is weak and sterile or look down on it simply because this portion was all that he happened to find. But precisely because he could not capture it all he should give thanks for its riches.

Be glad then that you are overwhelmed, and do not be saddened because he has overcome you. A thirsty man is happy when he is drinking, and he is not depressed because he cannot exhaust the spring. So let this spring quench your thirst, and not your thirst the spring. For if you can satisfy your thirst without exhausting the spring, then when you thirst again you can drink from it once more; but if when your thirst is sated the spring is also dried up, then your victory would turn to your own harm.

Be thankful then for what you have received, and do not be saddened at all that such an abundance still remains. What you have received and attained is your present share, while what is left will be your heritage. For what you could not take at one time because of your weakness, you will be able to grasp at another if you only persevere. So do not foolishly try to drain in one draught what cannot be consumed all at once, and do not cease out of faintheartedness from what you will be able to absorb as time goes on.

Discovering the Bible

I took Physics in my Junior year in High School. Doug, Chad, and Mike were all in that class. (Toni, who 11 years later would be my wife, was also in that class. More about that story will come later.) I noticed that they would bring Bibles to school and talk about religion, but they were also very intelligent and did well in science. They made me think that it could be possible to be intelligent, rational, and religious at the same time. Their example combined with my growing disillusionment with the unfulfilled promises of modern progress made me think I should give religion a chance. I decided that I would conduct a systematic study of the major world religions to see if any of them made sense. I believed that my Christian heritage was just something I happened to be born into, so there was no reason to believe that Christianity should hold any priority over any other religion. Therefore I should give them all a chance before making any kind of commitment.

Of course, I couldn't just Google Hinduism and bring up a Wikipedia article in the comfort of my bedroom. Such research in that day would mean a lot of time in the library just to get started. I had not made any progress towards my goal when I found myself in some conversations with these guys about the Bible. What made an impression on me was when they showed me how Jesus fulfilled so many Old Testament prophecies that had been written centuries before he was born. In the process of seeing these prophecies and their fulfillment, I had a kind of epiphany such that I knew that the Bible had to be a supernatural book. I suddenly had confidence that the Bible was a message from God, and losing all interest in other religions, all I wanted to do was to know and understand what it said.

About this same time, Doug, Chad, and Mike took me to a Christian youth meeting where they gave a simple gospel presentation that focused on the fact that Jesus Christ took all of our sins upon himself on the cross. We needed to trust in his work on the cross in order to receive forgiveness of our sins and eternal salvation. I wasn't sure if I had done that before or not, so I made a renewed effort at faith in Christ.

I began to immerse myself in anything Bible or Christian related. I wanted to make sure I had the right kind of Bible, so I ended up buying several. I would try to watch Christian television shows, but even in my enthusiasm, I couldn't take most of them. I did start to get into prophecy related teaching that predicted that Jesus was returning soon. I got into Christian music, including Michael Omartian, Keith Green, John Michael and Terry Talbot, 2nd Chapter of Acts and Daniel Amos. When I found out that there was a series of fantasy books with a Christian theme called The Chronicles of Narnia, I immediately started reading them. The Narnia books were very helpful because they worked on my imagination. As I stated before, growing up I had not found the person of Jesus to be very appealing. Now I believed that he was the Son of God and our Savior, but I still had trouble looking up to him as a person. However, in Narnia, Jesus was in the form of the lion Aslan. The way that C. S. Lewis portrayed Aslan was very appealing to me, and over time I was able to transfer the way I felt about Aslan to my conception of Jesus.

I continued to go to the same Presbyterian church our family had attended since I was 10. I got involved in the choir and was more interested in Sunday school and youth group, but my school friends went to a Bible Church, and I believed that they were closer to the Biblical truth. I visited their church whenever I got the chance.

As we neared graduation, we were all making plans for college. Mike was going to a Bible college, but I was going to Texas A&M. There was some concern that by going off to a big secular school, I would be endangering my new faith, so I prayed that God would protect me.