Thanks Sam, I absolutely love this talk and Father Behr’s portrayal of Gregory’s theology, which I totally agree with! As a follower of de Chardin, I find great hope here in that Behr is adding to the support of understanding cosmology as an evolutionary process, on the macro and micro level. A process that when really understood gives us the ability to embrace the Truth that science and religion are two aspects of one reality. Embracing spiritual/material evolution ( God’s plan) on personal and planetary levels can inspire us to realize that we ourselves, always with God’s grace and help, are called to the adventure of building a world that Jesus taught us to pray for: Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God is patiently waiting for us to grow up, individually and collectively. Trying to hold on to the past can’t work. Reality is always moving forward, growing. You can’t stay a teenager forever.
Thanks for listening. I need to dig more into de Chardin. People keep recommending him to me. I tried to read him in college but I think I was too young and didn't have the proper background yet.
@@transfigured3673yes, this was a beautiful conversation and made me think of Tielhard de Chardin as well. Our community, over at Developmental Philosophy, just had Ilia Delio give a presentation on Tielhard’s Omega Point, which is all about noosphere evolution and finding the truth of God in the observable cosmos. It would be fascinating to get all of these people in the same room. ua-cam.com/video/koYGt9BWe1Y/v-deo.html
Great summation, Richard. I struggle with how few of my fellow Catholics see the advantage of change and growth as part of God"s own design. Fear of this movement forward sets us up for living lives constantly fighting the culture and believing conspiracies and supporting strongmen who promise to go back to some mythical ly great past.
@@dewolf6836 Thank you. I so agree. Fundamentalist, hold on to the pre-scientific thinking of the past, is an overreaction destined to fail. I understand the impulse, but it is misplaced loyalty. We can plant the seeds of understanding God’s evolutionary project with love & patience among our fellows, with Faith in the future as we go.
35:01 “we’ve come into existence involuntarily (gnomic will) by a seed coming into the womb.” The womb is the tomb. Receive with meekness the Implanted Word which is able to save your souls. - Epistle of St. James The womb is the tomb. Trampling down death by death.
43:25 "not because its IMPERFECTION." I had to relearn the concept of perfection in my mind. "Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect", but in Luke he says "be merciful as your father in heaven is merciful." It is Truth and Mercy together that make perfection. Forgiveness creates perfection.
@@transfigured3673 That God intended that they should disobey his commandment not to eat of the tree because he would only give them children if they did eat of it. If they had not disobeyed God with regard to the eating of the fruit of the tree they would not have been able to obey his commandment to have children. There have been some Eastern Orthodox thinkers who have thought along similar lines.
@@transfigured3673 Here is the relevant passage. Note that eating the fruit is a transgression i.e. malum prohibitim not mal en sei. 22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. 23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. 24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. 25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. 26 And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given. 27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. 2 Nephi 2:22-27 www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/2?id=p22-p27&lang=eng#p22
The creation and fall are central components of the temple liturgy and this ties into our rejection of original sin and the understanding of the proper time for baptism as the age when children become accountable for their actions. Children that die before that point are automatically redeemed by Christ's Atonement.
@@Steelblaidd You are not addressing my point that you have God giving commandment to be fruitful and multiply, but which requires that his commandment not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil be disobeyed. LDS theology admits the Biblical truth that disobedience in eating the fruit plunged man into spiritual death, separation from fellowship with God. Yet your teaching that they had to do that disobedience in order to be able to be fruitful and multiply makes God require disobedience to one of his commandments. It makes disobedience necessary in order to obey. Do you not have cognitive dissonance in that. I think one of your theologians had expressed the view that Adam had to disobey to become united to Eve who had fallen into a dissimilar condition to him if he were to have children by her. However he later affirmed that the fall of both was necessary in order to have children. The standard Christian position is that, if Adam and Eve had remained obedient and not eaten of the fruit, neither they nor their children would suffer the effects of sin, mortality and alienation from God. God does not will that any should disobey any of his commands. God is good and always rewards obedience.
42:00 "There is no one on earth who does good and does not sin." - Ecc 7;20 This is why I can say that Jesus "sinned", otherwise I do not think that he is fully human, and still remains as some sort of demigod. I don't know that I can comfortably say it though, but I am getting there.
That’s not a good way of looking at it. Jesus not sinning wouldn’t make him non human it would simply make him a human who hadn’t sinned. The Bible can contradict itself in select verses and its message of salvation through a perfected human still be true
@@almondtree yes, but the opposite is true. God wants perfect obedience from all of us, but we can only obey him by receiving mercy. This is also true of Jesus, he believed that without God he was nothing, so he gave God his everything. Hebrews 5 says he had to learned obedience through his sufferings, so that means at one point he was ignorant of what obedience to God was. Maybe as a child he sinned in ignorance we literally don’t know but don’t get hung up on things the Bible doesn’t mention. It says he knew no sin though he was fully tempted by it, that should be enough for us.
The interpretation of Gregory, I think, parallels with the ancient thoughts of Virgil, in his saying that "the mind drives the mass" and the more modern revival of similar ideas found in the work of Sir Charles Lyell, who famously introduced the term "mind over matter." This concept suggests that with sheer determination, we can align our minds and, in turn, our bodies with virtuous thoughts and actions to promote evolutionary growth, a sort of spiritual Darwinism if you will. However, this notion overlooks the essential role of grace and tends to promote a focus on various forms of self-self-transcendence, self-righteousness, self-empowerment, and so on. This is of course the fruit of modern thought, the death of God and the elevation of individualism, which inevitably paves the way for relativism and culminates in nihilism. For me, the paradox of evolutionary thought lies in its tendency to foster stagnation; as it gazes ahead toward a barren future, one without God via grace, instead of reflecting on a past that embodied perfection, where God walked with man. The thing with forward movement and forward thinking is that they give the impression of progression but ultimately lead to desolation. Like water and oil, some things aren't just made to be mixed.
@@transfigured3673 You're killing me, Sam. Is this a sincere question, or are you challenging me? I'll assume it's sincere. So I hold to the philosophy that "there's nothing new under the sun." In other words, the seeds of modern thought can be found in pre-modern times. I don't necessarily agree with the theoretical framework of pre-modern/modern/post-modern, so I'm attempting to define things with two categories: Edenic thinking, or looking back to a perfected past, and post-Edenic thought, i.e., forward thinking, looking to what's ultimately a desolate future. It's my view society has been conditioned to adopt a forward-thinking (utopian) mindset, whereas we should instead acknowledge and redirect our attention to a once perfected past. That's essentially the short of it. But now that you got me going, I'll further lay out my thoughts on this. If I am understanding Gregory correctly, his idea of collective theosis (spiritual Darwinism) among humanity is not something that I find any scriptural basis for. Instead, the Bible suggests a regression, a significant departure from righteousness, leading back to the corrupt state reminiscent of post-fall/pre-flood times, ultimately culminating in the final judgment. Rather than depicting God as passively observing humanity's spiritual evolution, scripture indicates that this age is anticipating a specific number of spiritually reborn Christians to reach fulfillment. In essence, while most of humanity is in decline, a remnant is experiencing rebirth. However, this rebirth shouldn't be framed as a linear progression to a perfect state of being; instead, it should be viewed as a reorientation to a time and place even further beyond that of Noah, or a form of restoration. Adam, whom, as you know, I hold was an actual historical figure that lived roughly 6.000 years ago, transformed into a foretype only after the fall, which was, in my view, a historical event on the same level as Jesus' resurrection; before that, he represented the archetype. Had the fall not occurred, there would have been no necessity for salvation for him or his descendants. That is to say, sanctification to those given the gift of salvation is in a way a reorientation back toward the garden, a state that humanity has already experienced, but ultimately that is not a state that will be achieved through the progression of time or the culmination of spiritual practice, but rather will happen at a twinkling of an eye at the bodily return of Christ. The placing of cherubim around the historical Eden suggests that God's intention isn't to do away with the garden but rather it was to preserve it for an appointed time where he will once again unveil it. Is it a coincidence that modern thinking allegorizes Eden? I think not. Does that help you appreciate the sheer brilliance of my previous post? :D
This is super interesting! My question is, when you keep this “we learn through falling and getting up” idea, there’s a danger of someone treating sin lightly, or using that as an excuse; “have to learn through falling oh well”. Obviously no one is promoting that, but how do you work in the idea of choice and repentance in the sense of conversion? For instance, if our life is like human development, and we learn and grow and get better through falling, where is the idea of conversion/deciding to follow Jesus, and in some sense that being a choice. Is it simply “some people learn quicker from their mistakes”, “some never learn”? He gives some of an answer I see now as I am finishing the video. As you pointed out “we are not passive in all this” and I’d like to know more how that works out Again I really enjoyed this!!
All metaphors have their limits. The question is what are we supposed to be learning? The bruises of the child learning to walk still require healing. The sins committed learning to be moral actors still require repentance and atonement.
It is from Gregory/Macrina that we have this false idea that the "garments of skin" with which God clothed Adam and Eve after the Fall was the bodies with powers of reproduction. They make the same error as the LDS theology (refereed to in a comment below) that it was necessary for Adam and Eve to disobey God and fall into mortality in order to have the ability to have children. Scripture, on the other hand, says that God created them male and female before the Fall, and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, before the Fall.
It is a confusing question. I think that Nyssa and Behr would say that the real image of God is neither male nor female and that in the resurrection our bodies don't have gender.
I kind of disagree with this view of sin: it is too literal. If sin is literally thought of as "missing the mark", as opposed to "missing the mark" being an analogy of sin, then the concept loses most of its theological significance. The "mark", I think, is the law of love: loving God and neighbour. I don't continually sin when learning to play a new song on the piano. Failure and sin must have radically different content. To universalize the concept of sin like this empties it, I think. How is the sting of death sin, if sin is merely to fail? I don't miss my arrow because I am mortal, but the main reason why we fail to love God and neighbour is because our vulnerability.
Can John Behr's thanatology give a good reason against suicide? If death is our pathway to deification, why not just drink the kool-aid? Does the struggle for virtue continue post-mortem in his view?
@@transfigured3673 I have no idea what DBH's answer would be either. My own view is essentially Ecclesiastes 9:10, and that the only post-mortem salvation would be the resurrection of the body. I don't see how death can be affirmed without negating life, and life is sacred.
Thanks Sam, I absolutely love this talk and Father Behr’s portrayal of Gregory’s theology, which I totally agree with! As a follower of de Chardin, I find great hope here in that Behr is adding to the support of understanding cosmology as an evolutionary process, on the macro and micro level. A process that when really understood gives us the ability to embrace the Truth that science and religion are two aspects of one reality.
Embracing spiritual/material evolution ( God’s plan) on personal and planetary levels can inspire us to realize that we ourselves, always with God’s grace and help, are called to the adventure of building a world that Jesus taught us to pray for: Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God is patiently waiting for us to grow up, individually and collectively. Trying to hold on to the past can’t work. Reality is always moving forward, growing. You can’t stay a teenager forever.
Thanks for listening. I need to dig more into de Chardin. People keep recommending him to me. I tried to read him in college but I think I was too young and didn't have the proper background yet.
@@transfigured3673yes, this was a beautiful conversation and made me think of Tielhard de Chardin as well. Our community, over at Developmental Philosophy, just had Ilia Delio give a presentation on Tielhard’s Omega Point, which is all about noosphere evolution and finding the truth of God in the observable cosmos. It would be fascinating to get all of these people in the same room. ua-cam.com/video/koYGt9BWe1Y/v-deo.html
Great summation, Richard. I struggle with how few of my fellow Catholics see the advantage of change and growth as part of God"s own design. Fear of this movement forward sets us up for living lives constantly fighting the culture and believing conspiracies and supporting strongmen who promise to go back to some mythical ly great past.
@@dewolf6836 Thank you. I so agree. Fundamentalist, hold on to the pre-scientific thinking of the past, is an overreaction destined to fail. I understand the impulse, but it is misplaced loyalty. We can plant the seeds of understanding God’s evolutionary project with love & patience among our fellows, with Faith in the future as we go.
Behr is a real scholar. This is a pleasure to listen to.
@@Oskar-ey6jb thanks for listening!
Wonderful to have Fr John available on UA-cam
Agreed!
Thank you, Sam. Appreciate how much I love Father Behr's enthusiasm, warmth and vitality. Hope for more content like this!
I hope to talk to him again
31:08 how did I miss these beautiful Universalist arguments my first to listens?! ❤
it's amazing all the stuff we can fail to hear on a first listen
@@transfigured3673 absolutely.
48:00 experience is fundamental to the foundation of our being as change/transformation/metanoia.
All is forgiveness. ❤
Have you forgiven youtube yet for dropping your comments?
@@transfigured3673 almost.
@@transfigured3673 it did force me to listen again. And I heard new things. So, I guess it was a blessing.
What a pleasure to listen to this. Well done. Now I just have to wait for the paperback! 😅
I feel like I owe you to mail it to BC. Luke asked for first dibs though. Thanks Shari for helping get me aware of FJB in the first place
@ you don’t owe me anything! You have far surpassed me in your foray into the Church Fathers. I’m grateful you have taken on the task!
46:14 the end pedagogy, where we learn by experience.
Act as if.
The point is to live everything.
Personalist knowing.
1:02:08 this section by father behr “not repeating at Gregory of Nyssa” is Personalist knowing vs regurgitative knowing.
Exactly
35:01 “we’ve come into existence involuntarily (gnomic will) by a seed coming into the womb.”
The womb is the tomb.
Receive with meekness the Implanted Word which is able to save your souls. - Epistle of St. James
The womb is the tomb.
Trampling down death by death.
@@WhiteStoneName another type of human assumptions. It's a mystery just accept it as such
43:25 "not because its IMPERFECTION."
I had to relearn the concept of perfection in my mind. "Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect", but in Luke he says "be merciful as your father in heaven is merciful."
It is Truth and Mercy together that make perfection. Forgiveness creates perfection.
Fascinating to listen too. I would love to hear Fr John interact with LDS theology on the Fall.
What is the LDS theology of the fall?
@@transfigured3673 That God intended that they should disobey his commandment not to eat of the tree because he would only give them children if they did eat of it. If they had not disobeyed God with regard to the eating of the fruit of the tree they would not have been able to obey his commandment to have children. There have been some Eastern Orthodox thinkers who have thought along similar lines.
@@transfigured3673
Here is the relevant passage. Note that eating the fruit is a transgression i.e. malum prohibitim not mal en sei.
22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. 23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. 24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. 25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. 26 And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given. 27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
2 Nephi 2:22-27
www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/2?id=p22-p27&lang=eng#p22
The creation and fall are central components of the temple liturgy and this ties into our rejection of original sin and the understanding of the proper time for baptism as the age when children become accountable for their actions. Children that die before that point are automatically redeemed by Christ's Atonement.
@@Steelblaidd You are not addressing my point that you have God giving commandment to be fruitful and multiply, but which requires that his commandment not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil be disobeyed. LDS theology admits the Biblical truth that disobedience in eating the fruit plunged man into spiritual death, separation from fellowship with God. Yet your teaching that they had to do that disobedience in order to be able to be fruitful and multiply makes God require disobedience to one of his commandments. It makes disobedience necessary in order to obey. Do you not have cognitive dissonance in that. I think one of your theologians had expressed the view that Adam had to disobey to become united to Eve who had fallen into a dissimilar condition to him if he were to have children by her. However he later affirmed that the fall of both was necessary in order to have children. The standard Christian position is that, if Adam and Eve had remained obedient and not eaten of the fruit, neither they nor their children would suffer the effects of sin, mortality and alienation from God. God does not will that any should disobey any of his commands. God is good and always rewards obedience.
42:00
"There is no one on earth who does good and does not sin." - Ecc 7;20
This is why I can say that Jesus "sinned", otherwise I do not think that he is fully human, and still remains as some sort of demigod.
I don't know that I can comfortably say it though, but I am getting there.
That’s not a good way of looking at it. Jesus not sinning wouldn’t make him non human it would simply make him a human who hadn’t sinned. The Bible can contradict itself in select verses and its message of salvation through a perfected human still be true
@ it’s the only way for me to look at it. The message of salvation through a perfected human is entirely built upon forgiveness, not “not sinning”.
@@almondtree yes, but the opposite is true. God wants perfect obedience from all of us, but we can only obey him by receiving mercy. This is also true of Jesus, he believed that without God he was nothing, so he gave God his everything. Hebrews 5 says he had to learned obedience through his sufferings, so that means at one point he was ignorant of what obedience to God was. Maybe as a child he sinned in ignorance we literally don’t know but don’t get hung up on things the Bible doesn’t mention. It says he knew no sin though he was fully tempted by it, that should be enough for us.
Thank you for your insight! Does lithium ascorbate help your anxiety? 🙏
I do not understand the relevance of that question
The interpretation of Gregory, I think, parallels with the ancient thoughts of Virgil, in his saying that "the mind drives the mass" and the more modern revival of similar ideas found in the work of Sir Charles Lyell, who famously introduced the term "mind over matter." This concept suggests that with sheer determination, we can align our minds and, in turn, our bodies with virtuous thoughts and actions to promote evolutionary growth, a sort of spiritual Darwinism if you will. However, this notion overlooks the essential role of grace and tends to promote a focus on various forms of self-self-transcendence, self-righteousness, self-empowerment, and so on. This is of course the fruit of modern thought, the death of God and the elevation of individualism, which inevitably paves the way for relativism and culminates in nihilism.
For me, the paradox of evolutionary thought lies in its tendency to foster stagnation; as it gazes ahead toward a barren future, one without God via grace, instead of reflecting on a past that embodied perfection, where God walked with man. The thing with forward movement and forward thinking is that they give the impression of progression but ultimately lead to desolation.
Like water and oil, some things aren't just made to be mixed.
But how is it modern if this is 1600 years old?
@@transfigured3673 You're killing me, Sam. Is this a sincere question, or are you challenging me? I'll assume it's sincere.
So I hold to the philosophy that "there's nothing new under the sun." In other words, the seeds of modern thought can be found in pre-modern times. I don't necessarily agree with the theoretical framework of pre-modern/modern/post-modern, so I'm attempting to define things with two categories: Edenic thinking, or looking back to a perfected past, and post-Edenic thought, i.e., forward thinking, looking to what's ultimately a desolate future. It's my view society has been conditioned to adopt a forward-thinking (utopian) mindset, whereas we should instead acknowledge and redirect our attention to a once perfected past. That's essentially the short of it.
But now that you got me going, I'll further lay out my thoughts on this. If I am understanding Gregory correctly, his idea of collective theosis (spiritual Darwinism) among humanity is not something that I find any scriptural basis for. Instead, the Bible suggests a regression, a significant departure from righteousness, leading back to the corrupt state reminiscent of post-fall/pre-flood times, ultimately culminating in the final judgment. Rather than depicting God as passively observing humanity's spiritual evolution, scripture indicates that this age is anticipating a specific number of spiritually reborn Christians to reach fulfillment. In essence, while most of humanity is in decline, a remnant is experiencing rebirth. However, this rebirth shouldn't be framed as a linear progression to a perfect state of being; instead, it should be viewed as a reorientation to a time and place even further beyond that of Noah, or a form of restoration.
Adam, whom, as you know, I hold was an actual historical figure that lived roughly 6.000 years ago, transformed into a foretype only after the fall, which was, in my view, a historical event on the same level as Jesus' resurrection; before that, he represented the archetype. Had the fall not occurred, there would have been no necessity for salvation for him or his descendants. That is to say, sanctification to those given the gift of salvation is in a way a reorientation back toward the garden, a state that humanity has already experienced, but ultimately that is not a state that will be achieved through the progression of time or the culmination of spiritual practice, but rather will happen at a twinkling of an eye at the bodily return of Christ.
The placing of cherubim around the historical Eden suggests that God's intention isn't to do away with the garden but rather it was to preserve it for an appointed time where he will once again unveil it.
Is it a coincidence that modern thinking allegorizes Eden? I think not.
Does that help you appreciate the sheer brilliance of my previous post? :D
How can a man be born when he is old can he enter a second time into his mother's womb? Indeed some questions never grow tiresome.
Agreed Sam
This is super interesting!
My question is, when you keep this “we learn through falling and getting up” idea, there’s a danger of someone treating sin lightly, or using that as an excuse; “have to learn through falling oh well”. Obviously no one is promoting that, but how do you work in the idea of choice and repentance in the sense of conversion?
For instance, if our life is like human development, and we learn and grow and get better through falling, where is the idea of conversion/deciding to follow Jesus, and in some sense that being a choice.
Is it simply “some people learn quicker from their mistakes”, “some never learn”?
He gives some of an answer I see now as I am finishing the video.
As you pointed out “we are not passive in all this” and I’d like to know more how that works out
Again I really enjoyed this!!
Good points. I had a similar thought
All metaphors have their limits.
The question is what are we supposed to be learning?
The bruises of the child learning to walk still require healing. The sins committed learning to be moral actors still require repentance and atonement.
@
I understand and like the metaphor. Just cautious that it can be taken too far or abused. I think it has its limit there, which is fine! :)
Why is evil finite though? If evil is annihilation, then the path of evil ends in annihilation, which is a sort of "bad infinite" no?
Wouldn’t annihilation be 0? Not negative infinity?
@@transfigured3673 Perhaps "negative eternity" is a better wording. The only opposite to God would be _nihil._
@@transfigured3673 Yes, that's what I mean. Isn't 0 a negative eternity though?
It is from Gregory/Macrina that we have this false idea that the "garments of skin" with which God clothed Adam and Eve after the Fall was the bodies with powers of reproduction. They make the same error as the LDS theology (refereed to in a comment below) that it was necessary for Adam and Eve to disobey God and fall into mortality in order to have the ability to have children. Scripture, on the other hand, says that God created them male and female before the Fall, and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, before the Fall.
Thank you! ❤
Hope you enjoy
48:00 discernment > knowledge
Touch grass
How did you post this 2 days ago?
@@EmJay2022 Boomer 🫵
@@andrewternet8370 Now it's 3 days. What type of sorcery is this?
@@EmJay2022 Boomer 🫵🤢
Wow, this is cool Sam, thank you. And thank you Fr Behr!
Thanks for listening
Wait am minute what do you mean when you say that Christ was not male or female? Do you mean that Jesus was binary? I am confused.
It is a confusing question. I think that Nyssa and Behr would say that the real image of God is neither male nor female and that in the resurrection our bodies don't have gender.
@transfigured3673
So pre-ressurection Jesus was a biological male but post-ressurection his cosmic body is genderless.
I kind of disagree with this view of sin: it is too literal. If sin is literally thought of as "missing the mark", as opposed to "missing the mark" being an analogy of sin, then the concept loses most of its theological significance. The "mark", I think, is the law of love: loving God and neighbour. I don't continually sin when learning to play a new song on the piano. Failure and sin must have radically different content. To universalize the concept of sin like this empties it, I think. How is the sting of death sin, if sin is merely to fail? I don't miss my arrow because I am mortal, but the main reason why we fail to love God and neighbour is because our vulnerability.
Good points
What a privilege to hear-thank you Fr. Behr and Sam.
Thanks for listening!
Can John Behr's thanatology give a good reason against suicide? If death is our pathway to deification, why not just drink the kool-aid? Does the struggle for virtue continue post-mortem in his view?
I have wondered this too. Also for DBH. How exactly does post-death sanctification and deification happen?
@@transfigured3673 I have no idea what DBH's answer would be either. My own view is essentially Ecclesiastes 9:10, and that the only post-mortem salvation would be the resurrection of the body. I don't see how death can be affirmed without negating life, and life is sacred.
This is so unbelievable all down to theological assumptions. Talking about church fathers who have no idea about the world we inhabit.
the world is a hard thing to understand
@transfigured3673 sure you don't understand it by theological assumptions
Sam is back to Orthodox fathers. Nature is healing
lol
Our beloved Ortodoxy ❤
Praise Jesus our Lord and Savior!!!!