Posts Tagged eastern orthodox theology
Why is Theology Important?
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, Theology on March 3, 2013
What is our theology? Is it based on a world-view that God is good and the universe is good? Is God ambivalent, aloof and un-involved in a neutral, Newtonian physics-driven universe? Is God angry and vengeful over our sin, waiting to throw us into the pit of hell in a threatening, violent universe?
Does our theology promote a search for spiritual understanding? Or does our theology seek security and certainty in dualistic yes/no, either/or, right/wrong answers to spiritual questions?
Is our theology based on a big God who is broad, expansive, and inclusive in dealing with man? Or is God small, exclusive, and tribal, belonging to this group (e.g., Jews) or that (e.g., Baptists), with everybody else on the outside looking in?
Is our theology built from a viewpoint of God’s relationship with man (as experienced and recorded in Scripture and Tradition)? Or is it based on man’s rational concepts of God based on Scripture and philosophical speculation?
These are the types of questions theology asks and this is why theology is important. It is the foundation of how we experience and relate to God and the universe. It is the reason that God gave each human being a fully functioning nous (mind, intuitive conscience, spiritual intellect) to discover and use.
Theology is important because it ain’t necessarily so just because grandpa or somebody behind a pulpit said it’s so.
Greek Experience vs. Latin Concept in Theology
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, New Nuggets, Patristic Pearls, Theology on February 4, 2013
I support the notion that Christianity is about experiencing an intimate personal relationship with God. Proper theology is about how we experience that relationship from God to us. Classically, Greek Eastern (Orthodox) theology has been largely based on the experience of God’ relationship to man. The theology of the Latin West (Roman Catholic and Protestant), at least since the days of St. Augustine, has been largely based on philosophical speculation of man’s relationship to God.
For example, let’s contrast these two different approaches as they apply to Trinitarian doctrine. According to Orthodox theologian Fr. John Meyendorff, in the Eastern Greek tradition, “the incarnate Logos and the Holy Spirit are met and experienced first as divine agents of salvation, and only then are they discovered to be essentially one God.” In contrast, 19th century Jesuit theologian Fr. Theodore de Regnon stated, “Latin philosophy considers the nature in itself first and proceeds to the agent; Greek philosophy considers the agent first and passes through it to find the nature. The Latins think of personality as a mode of nature; the Greeks think of nature as the content of the person”.
The Latin approach is based on philosophical concept from man’s view of God. The Greek approach is based on how we experience God’s Biblical relationship to man.
Proper Christian Theology is always Top-down and Relational
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, Theology on December 30, 2012
Everything in proper Christianity is experiential; it is based on relationship. Take some examples: The immanent presence of spermatikos logos, the Son, within us, giving our minds the reason and order to recognize the existence of God and his moral will; the Incarnation of the Logos, God becoming flesh and dwelling among us in the person of Jesus was so that we would have a concrete living person that we could relate to and love as the human exemplar of God; the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was so that each of us could have a direct personal relationship with God in the Church Age, after Jesus’ resurrection.
Proper theology is always, always top-down; about God’s relationship to man. That is so our theology is always based on how man, the creation, experiences relationship with his loving Creator, God. When theology is done backwards, bottom-up, based on man’s ideas of God, you end up with a God that is an extrapolation of man, an anthropomorphized super-human God; and that is the error of Western Latin theology.
Union with God, theosis, is the goal of all proper theology and religion. In Eastern Orthodox theology, deification (theosis) is both a transformative process as well as the goal of that process; the attainment of likeness to or union with a loving God. Likeness and union are terms that inherently imply close personal realtionship. Any dogma or doctrine that does not reflect this experience of man’s love relationship with God is most likely in error and bad theology; an afterthought of man.
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