Now let’s look at “The Fall,” as we usually refer to the pivotal event described in Genesis 3. The Fall is not simply something that happened in one historical moment to one archetypal couple, Adam and Eve. It happens in all moments and lives. It is the shape of creation. It sets the plot line. After Adam and Eve took their identity as separate from their Source, “the eyes of both of them were opened”
What the Fathers sought most of all was their own true self, in Christ. And in order to do this, they had to reject completely the false, formal self, fabricated under social compulsion in “the world.” They sought a way to God that was uncharted and freely chosen, not inherited from others who had mapped it out beforehand. They sought a God whom they alone could find, not one who was “given” in a set,
Abba Antony said: Having therefore made a beginning, and set out already on the way to virtue, let us press forward to what lies ahead. And let none turn back as Lot’s wife did, especially since the Lord said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and turns back is fit for the Kingdom of heaven.” Now “turning back” is nothing except feeling regret and once more thinking about things of the world.
Guest writer and CAC faculty member James Finley continues exploring insights on the true self and false self that he gleaned from Thomas Merton. For Merton, the spiritual life is a journey in which we discover ourselves in discovering God, and discover God in discovering our true self hidden in God. Merton writes: The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. But whatever is in God is really identical
God’s freely given grace is a humiliation to the ego because free gifts say nothing about being strong, superior, or moral. Thus only the soul can understand grace, never the mind or the ego. The ego does not know how to receive things freely or without logic. It likes to be worthy and needs to understand in order to accept things as true. The ego prefers a worldview of scarcity or quid pro quo, where
Meeting the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus changed everything for Paul. He experienced the great paradox that the crucified Jesus was in fact alive! And he, a “sinner,” was in fact chosen and beloved. This pushed Paul from the usual either/or, dualistic thinking to both/and, mystical thinking. Not only did Paul’s way of thinking change, his way of being in the world was also transformed. Suddenly the persecutor—and possibly murderer—of Christians is the
Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and being born in human likeness. —Philippians 2:6 Could this stanza of the great Philippian hymn be applied not only to Jesus but also to the entire Trinity? I believe so. The Three all live as an eternal and generous kenosis, the Greek word for self-emptying. If
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 12, 2015 …. For although the Supreme Court is not the arbiter of morality, its decisions generally signal a deep level of cultural acceptance. Of course, in American practice, the Court represents the apex of legal/forensic imagination. Its decision[s]…signal the bankruptcy of the forensic model for continuing Christian thought. When questions of sexual behavior are placed before the legal model, Christians are simply unable to make a persuasive case for much
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 9, 2015 If Christian morality is not a legal or forensic matter, how are we to think about moral behavior? Does the word have no use for Orthodox Christians? What do we think about when we confess our sins? If morality is ontological – a matter of being – what does that look like? To say that morality is ontological, a matter of our being, is to confess that the commandments of God are
1 Corinthians 13 might be the supreme piece of condensed theology in the entire Bible. The whole message of Scripture is there. In this one short part of a longer letter, Paul shows himself to be an excellent philosopher, theologian, mystic, teacher, and psychologist. If he had written nothing else, he would still deserve a place in spiritual history. Honestly, I could preach for two hours on this one chapter and wouldn’t scratch the surface
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