Reading Group, 2d

The Moral Idea of the Dogma of the Incarnation

4.
a. It is one thing to admire and another to imitate. And is it not deceptive to think one could imitate Christ?
b. A Christian is compelled to choose daily between Christ and the world. In Kant’s system one who wishes to struggle for perfection, still far from being free of cooperation with evil, must stand against all this force having nothing but the mere example of Christ.
c. Christ must not only be higher than the visible and known world, but higher than all conditional existence; for He must be an unconditional existence, and one without beginning.

1. Why, according to Metropolitan Anthony, must Christ be God, higher than nature and the world, in order to be our Savior. How does he argue to this point?
2. What are we called to do in response to confessing Christ as God?
   

The Guardian Angel

Q & A with Fr Job:

Question: Is it true that, due to many sins, one’s Guardian Angel may leave someone?

Answer: The Guardian Angel is given to man at Baptism for his entire life. If someone lives a defiled life, then he departs from him, because his holiness is incompatible with the sinful stench that comes from such a person. However, the Guardian Angel does not completely abandon such a person. Having separated himself from him, he continues to pray for him who is under his heavenly protection. When that person wakes up spiritually, brings repentance and correction of his life, the Guardian Angel will return to him.

Reading Group, 2c

The Moral Idea of the Dogma of the Incarnation

3.

a.The moral significance of the dogma is clearly demonstrated from the negative approach described in the previous section. In order to avoid describing our moral life according to its own essence, rather than demonstrating the influence of faith in Jesus Christ as God upon it, we will expound its principal conditions with the words of Kant.

b. Kant sought to demonstrate that the Gospel can bring just as much benefit to those who deny Christ’s miracles and revelation as to believers, though failed to do so. In referring to his teaching on redemption and salvation, we will describe what Kant believes to take place in a person when he decides to dedicate himself to attaining moral perfection.This will show without difficulty that this is possible only with faith in Christ as God.

c. Kant taught that the transformation to good cannot take place without pain. The feeling of an inner discord and regeneration causes suffering which is all the more tormenting when those evil inclinations of the will which are being destroyed have put down deep roots in the nature of a person and turned into habit.

d. Suffering is repulsive to a natural person. The Gospel blesses those who are dishonored and demands that one renounce oneself, that one despise one’s life. The Gospel foretells woe to the wealthy and satiated. But what will rouse us to defy our self-loving nature?

e. Kant replies that there are principles which correspond to truth and good within one. But if one acts for the sake of obedience to the voice leading towards good, then one must also submit oneself to depraved passions when their demands run upon my conscience.

f. Kant writes: “we must imagine that it has already been truly realized; and then, without difficulty we will be inspired by this beautiful image which will be fore each of us, and consequently for all of us, a true savior.” For Kant, therefore, it is enough merely to find an inspiring example.

1. What is the significance of Metropolitan Anthony’s use of Kant in his argument?
2. What in fact is the argument that the Metropolitan is making?

Metropolitan Philaret on Holy Spirit Day

Here is my translation of a sermon by Metropolitan Philaret of Eastern America and New York on Holy Spirit Day:

The Orthodox Church yesterday celebrated the solemn feast of the All-Holy Trinity, and today is the second part of this feast, when the Church glorifies the All-Holy and Divine Spirit, Who descended on the Apostles and filled them with spiritual power. In the Six Psalms there are the following words: “My soul thirsteth after Thee like a waterless land,” that is, my soul stands before you like a land that is waterless.

Imagine land that has good seeds, but there is no water and they dry up. But if moisture falls upon them, they begin to sprout and grow. It is the same way with humans: the grace and power of the Spirit of God are as necessary for the human soul as this wonderworking moisture is for seeds. Without the grace of the Spirit of God all good beginnings, which the Lord earnestly planted in our soul, will remain fruitless and will grow only weeds.

How evil is growing in the human soul now, in our times! Never before in life has there been such filth, never have such outrages been committed, as are committed now, and there are almost no good crops! But, of course, for a Christian there is no foundation for despair, if he leads a good Christian life. Always pray, above all, that the Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit, visited and healed, so that the soul would be roused from spiritual slumber and may bear good fruit, which the Lord has sown, and expects from every soul. Amen.

The Book of Life and Free Will

Q & A with Fr Job

Question: The Bible says that God gave us free will. It also says that God knows absolutely everything and that the names of the saved are already written in the book of life. How then can there be a choice, if He has already decided everything for us?

Answer: The book of life is mentioned in several sacred Biblical texts. Here are these places: “Before Thee are all that afflict me ... Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and with the righteous let them not be written” (Ps. 68: 20, 29). “And I entreat thee also, true yoke-fellow, help those women which labored with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and with others my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life” (Phil. 4:3). “And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life" (Rev. 21:27). To these citations one should probably add the words of the prayer of Moses: “Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin –; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy book which Thou has written” (Ex. 32:32). As we see, not in a single place is it said that in this book are written the names of the saved. Interpreted essentially, the words “book of life” in the Bible symbolize the record in heaven of good deeds with which man will justify himself at the Judgment and receive eternal life.

Christian doctrine is entirely alien to the idea of predestination. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only beggoten Son of God, that whoseover believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn 3:16).

Reading Group, 2ab

The Moral Idea of the Dogma of the Incarnation

1.
a. The question at hand is: “What significance does faith that Jesus Christ is God have for moral life?”

b. Tolstoy notwithstanding, every enlightened Orthodox Christian acknowledges that one cannot be saved without faith in the Divinity of Christ and the Holy Trinity.

c. Certain intellectuals recognize Christ as their ideal without acknowledging Him as God.

d. But if they do not recognize Christ’s Divinity, what benefit can they actually derive from His teaching?

e. A significant part of the Gospel is therefore directly renounced by those who do not confess the Divinity of Christ.

2.
a. Those who claim to accept Christ without accepting His Divinity make Him into a dishonest deceiver and idle dreamer.

b. Renan noticed two facets of Christ’s teaching: (1) mercy toward the repentant and, (2) stern warnings to sinners who remained in iniquity; (1) a teaching about a joyous reconciliation with God and with one’s conscience and, (2) a teaching about a cross, self-sacrifice, enduring the hatred of the world. Renan accepted the former (1) while rejecting the latter (2), creating a sentimental Christianity.

c. There are those who do not acknowledge the Divinity of Christ, while claiming that He was a perfect person. In so doing they emasculate Christianity.

1. Why, according to Metropolitan Anthony, is it impossible to fulfill Christ’s commandments without recognizing His Divinity?
2. Why are the only available options to accept Christ as true God or else a as a deceiver?
3. How is it clear that Christ can be our Savior only if we believe in Him as true God?
4. Is Metropolitan Anthony arguing for morality to dogma, or from dogma to morality?
   

Holy Spirit Day

Tomorrow, the day after Pentecost, is dedicated to the Holy Spirit. S. V. Bulgakov writes the following about this commemoration.

The feast in honor of the Holy Spirit, "one of the Trinity of God, one in honor, one in essence and one in glory with the Father and the Son” is celebrated on the Monday after Pentecost. This feast has been established by the Church "for the majesty of the Most Holy and Life-creating Spirit, for He is one of the Holy and Life-originating Trinity", in reaction to the teaching of the heretics who rejected the divinity of the Holy Spirit and that He is equal-in-honor with God the Father and the God the Son. "The Holy Spirit”, as it says in the Synaxarion, “is called the Comforter because He can encourage and calm us; we received Him "in place of Christ" and through Christ we have Him; He intercedes before God for us with unspeakable sighs as the Lover of mankind, interceding for us in exactly the same way as Christ, for He is the Comforter. Therefore the Holy Spirit is called the other Comforter; wherefore the Apostle says: we have the Comforter Jesus before God. He is called according to the unity in essence; wherefore in one sense "one and the other" we understand identical and consubstantial, and the words: "one and the other" is about various natures. This Holy Spirit is one with the Father and the Son in everything; He therefore accomplishes everything with Them, even the future resurrection, and everything that He wants, He creates, sanctifies, divides, renews, sends, makes wise, anoints the prophets, and briefly to say: does everything, being all-powerful, omnipotent, good, correct, and reigning. Through him is granted every wisdom, life, activity, as He is the source of sanctification and all life. In general He has everything that Father and the Son has "except for being unbegotten and begotten", proceeding only from the Father). When the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh, then the world was filled with every kind of gift, and through Him all peoples were guided to the knowledge of God, and both any illness and any infirmity are driven out").

In the services of this day the same hymns are sung as on the day of Pentecost, except that the Canon in glory of the Holy Spirit is sung at Compline. On the eve of the day of the Holy Spirit the All Night Vigil is not appointed (Ustav, Chap. 56 on the Temple). Matins is served with the Great Doxology, but without singing the Polyeleon; instead of "More Honorable" at Matins the Irmos of the 9th Ode of the Canon is sung). In the Liturgy the Deacon intones the "Introit", as on the day of Pentecost; the Dismissal is the same as on the day of Pentecost.

Online resources:

• Pentecostarian service in Greek and Slavonic.
  
• Epistle reading: Ephesians 5:9-19.
  
• Gospel reading: Matthew 18: 10-20.
• St John Chyrsostom homily 60 on Mathew.
• St John of Shanghai and San Francisco, sermon.
• Metropolitan Philaret of Eastern America and New York, sermon.
  
• Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, sermons from 1985, 1986, and 1989.
• Archbishop Andrei of Rockland, sermon.
• S. V. Bulgakov, explanation.