Eastern vs. Western Angles on Truth

Faith & Science Conversation
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I want to avoid pointless exchanges that lead us nowhere, but I feel the subject of salvation may be lost in some of the comments made to me - so with the hope that this may be useful to this thread, I offer the following as a summary only (and I hear someone say, "If this is a summary, oh boy !!! :relieved::slight_smile: - so here it is:

The central question to humanity is that of sin and redemption. Yet these terms are formalisms in today’s culture. The forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Christ, however, is the centre-piece of the faith. Such a discussion needs to be initially ‘separated’ to show a distinction between the sacred and the material. The overall ‘meaning of Christ’ may now be discussed within the context of the first Adam and the last Adam. The sum total of (good) human possibilities may be comprehended within a context of the beginning and end of humanity. To this, I add the practical, which is to consider Christianity proper as the means by which humanity progresses (or reaches its destiny) into human beings who are like Christ. Human beings may progress from our present state (symbolised by the first Adam) into that revealed by the actions and teachings of Christ (the final Adam). This thesis would require a careful review of human attributes as they are now, and the attributes (ultimate) of Christ. Overall, it is not what I sometimes regard as a Miltonian view of Christ outwitting or ‘beating’ the Devil, nor a Dantean view of a cosmological order into which people ‘fit’ or ‘act’ so as to aspire to an end result that accords to a human ideal of good and evil that ultimately actualises into a hell for the wicked, a heaven for the blessed, and a purgatory for those ‘in between’.

Christ ‘had to achieve’ in order to provide the forgiveness of our sins. The overall result is the change or ‘conversion’ of human beings ‘dead’ because of sin, into human beings ‘alive’ once again in Christ, with Godly attributes. Humanity is saved from Satan’s attributes, that of sin. This is a practical proposition that does not immediately require a separate entity with a spiritual existence, such as an immortal soul. As a result, salvation can only be an act of Grace from God himself. Immortal souls will always be immortal – thus some type of goal, or end result from this life, would be non-sense to an immortal being. Instead, we as finite human aspire to a Godly life as one in which sin is removed, and with this death is removed, and the result is God’s eternal life, as we are not separated from God by our sins. The question of an ‘afterlife’ is now a Godly life without death - that is eternal life.

Salvation is the change or conversion of human beings into people with Godly attributes, as the children of God, through baptism in the death of Christ, and resurrection into life in Christ. The final change takes place at the last trumpet, or last day, and is determined by God himself.

The contradictions arising from the idea of god are the result of intellectual speculation based on an erroneous premise of being. A person ‘knows’ that he is alive. He may continue to reason and speculate about life, but he cannot become life through an idea.

The term ‘the Grace of God’ is sometimes used to infer that Christianity is unfair - for example, if all the attributes that accord to the one-ness of God were so beneficial, why should not all of humanity be able to access them? Why should God ‘show favour’, so to speak, and choose to be gracious to some and not to others? If God is, as we say, truth and mercy, and so on, He should have ‘converted’ all of humanity by now and thus we would all live in a perfect world without the suffering and misery found on this earth. In this way, we transfer responsibility for our actions to God by virtue of the basic tenant of Salvation, which is that God saves humanity from ‘death’ or sin, into ‘life’ and goodness. The obvious answer to this is that this would not be an act of Grace by God but an act of force - in other words, we would not have a say in this change from dual/plural attributes into singular Godly attribute. The question, however, has far deeper significance and goes to the heart of the matter of man and God. The Christian message is that the Son of God came to live amongst us and although none could find fault with Him, we as human beings (or those human beings who interacted with Christ) decided to put Him to death. This profound message shows that God would not force or insist on our conversion. It also shows that we human being may say we would choose mercy and goodness, but in actual fact we often choose otherwise.

The ideas expressed by those with regret regarding the human condition, when considering such things as cruelty amongst human beings, are found within the intentions and acts of human beings. When these ideas are place within the context, or criticisms as a given idea of God, the result is intent to pass responsibility for the acts and attributes of human beings to something other-than-humanity; yet these same human beings cannot entertain the notion of being any other that their-self, including the right to choose any act they may present to themselves. The result of this jumble of ideas is understood as the pain, rather than the pleasure, of human existence; while the pleasure experienced by human beings is seen by them as a sufficient cause to be satisfied to remain as such particular beings, the pain of human existence may cause them to either appeal to God, or a god, or to argue with gods on the outcomes of their own human actions.

We as human beings make many attempts to deal with this dilemma; one attempt has been to use our own will to arrive at a means by which intention, action, and morality (goodness) were made comprehensible within a community of human beings, and also desirable (freely chosen) by all in that community. The result would be a ‘one-ness’ for each individual, and also the entire community, in intent, act, and all outcomes would be common to every member of such a community. This probably presents the ideal of democracy and is sometimes spoken in theological language – such a notion is also testimony to the spirit of humanity, in that it aspires to such an ideal, albeit vaguely understood and poorly practiced. The freedom of the human spirit (discussed previously) provides the ground for a common good, while the experience and history of humanity argues against the ability for human beings to achieve such an ideal of a communal ‘one-ness’ and common good.

These short remarks provide a background to the essential elements of Christianity and emphasise why Christ is the resurrection and the life; no-one could come to the Father accept through the Son. Christians are totally dependant on Christ, and forgiveness and cleansing of their sins is by the blood of Christ. This dependence shows the relationship between those called by God to faith in Christ, and is the ‘practical’ side of Salvation. This relationship calls for the one-ness within Christian life, Christian thought, and Christian belief in the One-True-God.

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I hope the book will not remain unpublished, Jay! The unpacking of the “honour” concept in NT society is an important one in understanding so much of the NT (this was pointed out to me by Bruce Winter of Tyndale House, whose field was the background of, particularly, diaspora and non-Jewish sociology.

Jesus would, and did, cut across both that “shame” culture and our “autonomous” one, but it seems to me that his own model has somewhat more in common with the former, in that the subordination of oneself to the social norm is being replaced with the proper subordination of oneself to God’s kingdom norms - ultimately modelled by Jesus himself as personal obedience to the Father and his ways, and for us put into practice by submission to Christ as to God.

Your link of individuality to original sin strikes a chord (not least in the common and symptomatic western denial of the doctrine of original sin!). My own unpublished book (maybe I should submit it to an Eastern publisher!) traces that individuality to a quite distinct movement in the Renaissance, rightly or wrongly.

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@Jon_Garvey

Augustine has been called the first modern or Western man. This is based on his Autobiography, which is noticeably introspective. This is what people mean when they say that the West is individualist, while the East is collectivist. I do not think that an Easterner could or would do what Martin Luther did.

Individualism can be good when done right and not good when done wrong, like most things. Jesus defied the collective judgement of the Jewish religious establishment, and Paul defied the Jews, Gentiles, and Pater.

In my opinion humans are both social and individualist. and Augustine’s Trinity is the basis of reconciling both. This is the reason why the Western Church split off theologically from the East. The Augustinian Trinity is the key of the differences between the Eastern and Western Churches.

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Yes, but your response is that of a reasonable, theologically literate adult. I’m looking at high school and college-age kids, 15-25. They support Bernie Sanders. Most of them have not read the Bible, never mind any theology. @Thanh_C hinted at the problem. Yet, right at the age when most people are making up their minds about the “big” questions, many of the youth ministries in evangelical churches are spending the majority of their time on controversial issues. We talked about some of this a bit in the “Bending the Curve” thread awhile back. Still, as you say, the problem is complex, and many other factors are involved. I certainly can’t say that I have “THE” answer. At least, not yet. Haha[quote=“Eddie, post:50, topic:5550”]
But that is what Jon Garvey is saying. And he is also pointing out that “evangelical” has come to have a different sense – at least in America – over the past 50 or 60 years.
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Yes, I was agreeing with him here. But I don’t think that most American evangelicals are focused on subjective experience rather than objective doctrine. The Charismatic tradition is the more “touchy-feely” type, and going back to my post #20, they represent just 15% of the total evangelical population. Interestingly, when I was looking for that number, I ran across a lot more data on the growth of Charismatic churches in Latin America and Africa. In any case, I also agree with your last observation on the tendency of people to compartmentalize and rely on others to form their opinions for them.

Thank you! I’m looking for a new agent at the moment. Publishing is a long haul. I’ve had your book bookmarked for a while. Look forward to reading it!

Well said. And as @Relates points out, as human beings, we are both individual and social. We come to Christ an individual, but we are joined as one in the family of God. "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. (Jn. 17:20-21)

Out of all your first paragraph, this is the only difference between us. I think that there are good reasons not to read the Biblical creation account literally. For example, the name Adam functions in the narrative more like a title, i.e. “The Man,” than a personal name, which fits well with the fact that the Hebrew adam refers typically to mankind and is also a play on the word adama, or “ground.” There are other reasons, too, but this is where we differ. I do not believe the narrative loses any of its theological force by my reading, although some cannot conceive of that being possible. Forgive me for being ignorant of your branch of Christianity, but does the Eastern Orthodox church require believers to accept its interpretation of Scripture?

Thanks for the summary of your church’s view of salvation. (Or was that your view? Sorry. It wasn’t clear to me if you wrote that or someone else.) It is interesting to see things that we generally agree upon put in such different language than I am used to seeing.

Back to the differences between Eastern and Western views. One thing that cropped up in my research on “shame” culture turned up an interesting side note. Often, missionaries try to present the Gospel in the forensic language of Billy Graham, emphasizing our guilt before God and our forgiveness in Christ. While those things are true, they mostly fall on deaf ears in non-Western cultures.

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@Jon_Garvey

Jesus does not shame people. Jesus forgives people, just as He forgave the woman caught i9n adultery. We need to do likewise.

Christianity is a relational faith based on love, not a legalism religion of shame or individualistic merit.

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Roger, I don’t think you understood my use of the parallel - maybe you didn’t understand the cultural distinction Jay was describing, either.

The main distinction Jay drew was between our individualism, in which personal guilt is what sin is all about, and the Eastern culture - in which the gospel actually arose - in which ones social framework was the nexus in which both sin (leading to shame vis a vis ones community) and salvation are to be understood.

Rather as in N T Wright’s treatment of Paul (as far as I have understood it), forgiveness in the latter has to do predominantly with taking one out of the destructive setting and into that centred on God (from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light). Of course, our viewpoint of a guilty individual receiving grace through forgiveness to a state of righteousness gets to the same place, but tends to underestimate the communal nature of “Kingdom” - and thus as a side effect breed that western emphasis on individual beliefs rather than “the faith of the Church”, on my salvation rather than our salvation.

One small example - haven’t you ever been in those discussions where people cast doubt on the likelihood of the stories in Acts where a man and his whole household are saved (including, presumably, the the wife, kids, mother-in-law and servants)? Over here we suspect either exaggeration or coercion - but in many parts of the world, such a thing would be the obvious norm. The chief gets saved, and the village are converted - or even in Europe in mediaeval times, it’s not so strange that the conversion of King Oswald also marks Northumbria becoming a Christian realm.

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@GJDS In a number of posts on this Forum, I have expounded my ‘solution’ to the ‘paradox’ you pose here. It appears that I have failed in convincing anyone that my view gives a clearer picture of Christ’s combined human/divine nature than was available before we had scientific knowledge of evolution and humanity’s genetic underpinnings. Nevertheless, I will try once more:

Darwinian evolution is the most reliable explanation we currently have of how our species, Homo sapiens, descended from earlier forms of animal life. But this describes only a range of phenotypes that represent the species. At the moment each of us is conceived, the genetic information to ‘construct’ a phenotype is fixed. However, the developmental process that produces the final human being is highly plastic (see e.g. “Develpmental Plasticity & Evolution” Mary Jane Wesst-Eberhard), and environmental effects can dictate different outcomes from the same genetic code. Previously, genetic determinism was the dominant ‘environmental dogma’, but it has now become apparent that developmental causes of variation can be crucial in providing the ‘raw material’ upon which evolution acts. It is important to note that these developmental variations can be expressed by physical and by behavioral differences.

So what has this to do with the belief that Jesus was truly man but still sinless?

Sin (i.e. moral Sin) could come into the world only when the creature involved has a knowledge of right and wrong, and the freedom to chose the wrong. For the first 100,000 yrs on earth our species, Homo sapiens, lacked a conscience and behaved instinctively. Relatively suddenly, their primate brain circuits were ‘programmed’ to behave as Minds, and in a Great Leap Forward, they became the humans we recognize as US–capable of acting with love, compassion and selflessness, but still being guided genetically by what have been labeled "selfish genes". Jesus could have come into this world with the DNA that expressed these selfish genes, but (thru the Holy Spirit) his development proceeded in such a way that expressed the potential that God wishes for each and every one of us. God created us with the potential to sin; i.e., capable of sin, but still as part of a ‘very good’ world. He sent Jesus to show us how we could achieve His Kingdom if we chose not to sin.
Al Leo

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@Jay313

This is my summary - I draw heavily on the Bible, Patristic writings, and these are, as far as I know theology, the teachings of the Orthodox Church of God.

My view is that Biblical narrative is meant primarily to teach us and it is both historically relevant, but also contains eternal truths. Thus while Adam and Eve were truly human beings created in the image of God, they are also symbolic of all human beings (by symbolic I mean represent the nature and inclinations of all of us). This also encompasses what you refer to as “The Man”, and made out of the same material as the earth or ground.

One difference that I have noticed regarding the broad classification “evangelical” and “orthodox” is the latter’s emphasis on how we live as individuals and as a community, while the former seems to be focussed in individual and even idiosyncratic readings of the Bible, and a fairly ad hoc approach to theology. For example, it is not uncommon for a church to remove or publicly criticise a member if such were found to hurt or steal from someone, while my impression is that evangelicals are prone to enter into doctrinal arguments and avoid too much criticism of individual acts. However this may be a mistaken impression as I think all Christians seek the good and try to avoid evil in any guise.

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@Jon_Garvey

While I do not have any problem with group conversions historically, I would not think that they are based on coercion, I would wonder how “real” these mass conversion would be. To be sure a mass conversion can lead to the establishment of real churches and true Christians with time.

I wonder however if you understood the truly historical aspect of what I was talking about. Augustine was a Christian saint, the greatest theologian outside the Bible, and the FIRST Westerner.

The western world view grew out of Augustine’s understand of God and in particularly the Trinity. God as revealed by Jesus Christ is the Trinity Who combines the social and the individual, the one and the many, the unity and complexity.

Of course non-Christian societies are communal. To think that they are like Western society is to commit a egregious anachronism. God is not dead. God is still in the business of revealing Godself through God’s Logos/Word. God is still alive revealing Godself through God’s ongoing Creation. .

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Well, I don’t dispute Augustine’s importance to Western theology (and he even influenced the East’s once his work was trandlated into Greek). But I think it’s disputible whether his work on the Trinity is as influential as the earlier work of Athanasius (surely a competitor to Luther for persistence in the Lord’s cause!) and the Cappadocian Fathers on the Western conception of economic Trinity. After all, it’s the Athanasian Creed which was recited in Anglican churches here until saying creeds went out of fsahion (not long before understanding them did!).

As for mass conversions, I’ve heard many instances in our day, in India, Africa, or South America, of a significant healing or a visiting evangelist’s preaching leading to virtually a whole village becoming Christian. Churches a re founded - the issue often is getting adequate doctrinal teaching to them thereafter… but that’s the case in a lot of churches in the privileged west, too, where the seminaries don’t always turn out what the church actually needs.

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@Jon_Garvey

Jon, we argued long over the Augustinian Trinity which I prefer and is the traditional Western view as opposed to the Cappadocian Trinity, w2hich you prefer.

I certainly agree that Athanasius, the African theologian who most like originated the doctrine of Nicaea and certainly was primarily responsible for its long term establishment. This does make him a great theologian that we should recognize in the West.

However besides his Confessions, then first Western autobiography, we have The City of God , which gave the outline for the survival of the Church after the destruction of the Roman Empire about the time of his death.

Also Augustine imported the concept of a monastery from the East and adapted it to the situation in the West, in order to further guarantee the survival of the Church. This is in addition to defining the key Western understanding of the Trinity with his masterful book, On the Trinity, which shapes its understanding of God and Reality.

Luther was an Augustinian monk.

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Yes, I would agree with this.

I agree, and I would actually prefer the term “orthodox” over “evangelical,” but the former has already been claimed. We in the west need to recover and re-emphasize the communal aspects of the faith that have been neglected.

As for individual and idiosyncratic readings, remember that 35% of evangelical Christians in the U.S. are Baptists, and Baptist theology places particular stress on the “priesthood of all believers.” Thus, Baptist ministers and theologians are not bound to a particular theological creed, other than dunking instead of sprinkling and “once saved, always saved.” Then, there is the growth of non-denominational churches, which may or may not subscribe to a set of historic creeds or confessions. More often than not, a particular non-denominational church derives its theology from the minister who founded it and his successors. Add to that the Charismatic churches, which stress personal experience over doctrine, and two-thirds of American Protestantism is practically a theological free-for-all.

Sorry. I was speaking shorthand. haha. I’m interested mainly in young adults and kids who are (or were) raised in evangelical churches, but their worldview is still roughly defined and taking shape. By the time they are 25, it is more or less fixed. My experience with this age group suggests that they are leaving or drifting away from the church in greater numbers than past generations. I want to know why, and what we, as Christians, can do about it.

You’re right, that wouldn’t make much sense for a young person who was firmly committed to Christ. But, if you remember that study I cited about the mainline churches’ decline in members, “the single best predictor of church participation turned out to be belief – orthodox Christian belief, and especially the teaching that a person can be saved only through Jesus Christ.” The mainline denominations lost the Baby Boom generation because they failed to teach the “fundamentals” of Christian faith. Now, evangelical churches are at the leading edge of a similar decline in numbers.

My thesis is not that Republican politics has produced a loss of faith in the young. My thesis is that too many evangelical churches similarly “took their eye off the ball,” in regard to teaching our youth. Rather than giving young people a solid foundation in Christ, many of our youth leaders focused on pounding the “right” answers on controversial issues into our children’s heads. Lots of kids heard lots of teaching on sexual purity, abortion, evolution, gay rights, secular humanism, etc., because this is where the “culture wars” were being fought. Not only do these kids fail to receive a proper grounding in the faith, they are left with the impression that if they disagree with the politics attached to these issues, they are not truly Christian.

Yes. This is the result of that type of Christian “education.” Now, imagine the same type of thing going on with high school students, many of whom are still making up their minds about what they do or don’t believe.

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I don’t either, at the moment. Hard data has been hard to come by, so to speak. I have to finish my current project before I fully dive into this one, but so far I have found very little research into the types of questions that I am asking.[quote=“Eddie, post:67, topic:5550”]
The emphasis in such activities is not on culture-war topics, but on memorizing as much of the Bible as possible.
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Yes, memorization is of dubious value. It has its place, but it’s a bit like memorizing the multiplication tables in relation to algebra.

Bam! Exactly right, and you vaulted over my head on your way there!

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Perhaps this is the group most affected by the position that “if you reject a literal reading of Genesis as we interpret it, then you reject the whole gospel”. I tend to get tunnel vision and focus on kids in the church who fall away due to that view, but those who are out of church will never consider Christ when the gospel is presented that way.
Thank you all for the good discussion. Carry on.

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At the risk of “jumping in late to a mature conversation,” what I see in scripture, especially in Paul’s writings, is stronger emphases on holiness and unity than an “uncompromising search for correctness in doctrine.” Certainly he says that it is holiness and unity that characterize the true Christian, rather than doctrinal correctness. Sure, he stresses the importance of doctrinal correctness, but it’s a pretty minimal set of doctrinal assertions he makes. He does not stress doctrinal statements about creation, or predestination, or homoousion, or initial evidence of tongues, etc.

So, while in contrast to you, I do hear conversations about doctrinal issues like predestination, the nature of those conversations has changed from agonistic to exploratory. From my perspective, that is far more in line with what we see in the New Testament.

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@Eddie,

That is a fine paragraph!

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I agree with you…but again, I’m dealing fairly regularly with young adults that are thinking deeply. Thinking deeply is important for those that can and those that can should be challenged to do so. When it comes to extremes, though, experience of Jesus trumps thought.