Interesting conversation the last few pages - kudos to WoodArch4033 for giving some great responses. I’ll add a couple points of commentary I feel got overlooked along the way.
For those interested in this topic, Fr. Steven de Young’s “The Religion Of The Apostles” goes in-depth into the subject of the OT sacrificial system.
To sum it up, most of the types of sacrifice outlined in the OT are a bringing forth of one’s produce/livelihood, or of one’s riches/resources, out of love and self-denial. This is a sacrifice in the same sense that, say, a father sacrifices his resources for the sake of his family, *not* in the sense of something else being punished instead of the person offering it. The notion that the OT system involves giving God alternative targets upon which to take out his anger is rather obviously refuted when you spend some time reading Leviticus, especially chapter 2, where various types of sacrifice are not even animals and are instead things like offerings of wheat, first fruits of crops, and other food offerings.
There’s no notion at all that sheep, rams, and pigeons are punished or receive angry destruction from God instead of the person offering it. This is also illustrated by the fact that the *way* the animal is killed is not very important, but rather that this is a precedent to its blood being sprinkled for the offering.
But the problem here is twofold. One, the scapegoat isn’t killed, merely let loose into the wilderness, so the analogy with Christ already breaks down at that level; and two, the image surrounding Christ’s sacrifice throughout Scripture is that of the lamb, not the goat. John the Baptist doesn’t proclaim “Behold, the Scapegoat of God, whom God will beat up instead of you!”
The problem is that humans aren’t static entities, like properties in computer code set to true or false, but dynamic beings, which unfortunately means that we rather easily choose to return to wallowing in the mud of sin rather than abiding in Christ. The reason why the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion exist is to account for this fact and to rehabilitate us and re-unite us to Christ when we stumble. These aren’t “things” we “add to,” or “works” we can “boast about”, but gifts God gives us to help us in our weakness.
How in the world is partaking of Holy Communion a “work” on my part? All I “do” is open my mouth. God, through His Church, does the rest. The real question is the means by which God imparts salvation: through an abstract rational assent (which Scripture itself calls the “faith of demons”) , or by tangible means that condescend to our nature as dynamic, corporeal beings?
The issue isn’t Christ’s offering bringing salvation, but our stubborn refusal to abide in it. Empirical observation of how actual Christians act is enough to illustrate this, since - at least in my experience, and that of every Christian I’ve ever known - we obviously continue to sin to varying degrees and must struggle toward holiness.
If one prayed a prayer professing faith in Christ and was immediately perfected by God’s grace then I’d be much more willing to grant the presuppositions of the Calvinist system, but it doesn’t line up with how Christians actually behave; it instead posits a sort of theoretical anthropology (not unlike “systems” in other domains, such as Capitalism or Marxism, which posit how people should/will act in theory, but which break down in practice as human behavior and motivations are more complex than these system posit or are even capable of accounting.)
One reason why I found Orthodoxy convincing is because its anthropology and perspective on these matters line up with how people actually behave “on the ground.” We obviously keep sinning and separate ourselves from God’s grace, so God provides means for us to be reconciled and healed. It’s an eminently practical approach to the spiritual life.
This is really the essential part of synergism, we are empowered by God’s grace to choose to follow Him or reject Him. Our ability to choose is a gift given by God, not some intrinsic property of our own will, which is indeed damaged by sin; but the entire point is that in Christ God heals our nature, thus granting the capacity to choose to abide in Him.
But this is obviously wrong because well-intentioned Christians fail all the time. These kinds of statements sound nice on paper but don’t line up with how people actually behave. It seems far more plausible to me that this is just rhetorical maneuvering and the notion that God either provides no grace, or grace that essentially forces you to do this or that, is a completely arbitrary distinction.
Well, sort of, if you understand “good works” to mean works God does for us to help us rather than “things we do to impress God.” To assume that Orthodox are saying the latter is to anachronistically press into service St. Paul’s rhetoric challenging Jewish self-satisfaction based on pride in their identity (eg., “We have Abraham as our father!”) against Orthodox sacraments. It’s an apples to oranges comparison. The apple can shout all day that the orange is an apple, but if you’re an orange, you find the argument less than convincing.
When I see these sorts of accusations it really betrays that you just don’t have any familiarity with how Orthodox people actually perceive their salvation and relation of “good works” to it. I realize that reading the prayers of the Church and service texts and lives of the Saints is less exciting than theological writings, but if one really wants to understand how we think about all this in practice, going to church services, listening to the prayers, reading the lives of Saints will give a much clearer idea. Our theology is not reflected by Reformed theological mathematics (“If you say X then you really mean Y and Y = Z!”).
What Orthodox saint ever reached the end of their lives proclaiming how confident they were in their own sanctity? Instead they tend to regard themselves as the worst of sinners relying entirely on God’s mercy to save them who can see no good in themselves; but those around them certainly can perceive their holiness. This is all vastly different from the Jewish behavior St. Paul is confronting in his epistles, and to try to utilize St. Paul’s texts in this way is just anachronistic. The round peg of Orthodox soteriology doesn’t fit into the square hole of Calvinism.
Again, Orthodox don’t believe that we freely choose all on our own (which is Pelagianism), but that God grants us the grace to be able to choose freely. The real question is the nature of God’s grace: is it an on/off switch, or a healing of our ability to choose to respond to Him? God doesn’t make us act, but enables us to act. That is the Orthodox perspective.
Calvinists trying to frame this as us asserting we’re saved by our good works, or that God’s grace is somehow weak and ineffective, is just rhetorical evasion that misses what we actually believe, a notion of God’s grace that exists outside of the arbitrary parameters of the Reformed system. Iacobus’s post right above mine does an excellent job of explaining this by analogy.
This is a great illustration of the problem with the Reformed system, which doesn’t seem to acknowledge that our nature is actually healed by Christ; the Reformed system seems to treat Christians as though they are still subject to the same behavioral parameters as heathens, but have their cosmic legal status altered by Christ.
For those interested in this topic, Fr. Steven de Young’s “The Religion Of The Apostles” goes in-depth into the subject of the OT sacrificial system.
To sum it up, most of the types of sacrifice outlined in the OT are a bringing forth of one’s produce/livelihood, or of one’s riches/resources, out of love and self-denial. This is a sacrifice in the same sense that, say, a father sacrifices his resources for the sake of his family, *not* in the sense of something else being punished instead of the person offering it. The notion that the OT system involves giving God alternative targets upon which to take out his anger is rather obviously refuted when you spend some time reading Leviticus, especially chapter 2, where various types of sacrifice are not even animals and are instead things like offerings of wheat, first fruits of crops, and other food offerings.
There’s no notion at all that sheep, rams, and pigeons are punished or receive angry destruction from God instead of the person offering it. This is also illustrated by the fact that the *way* the animal is killed is not very important, but rather that this is a precedent to its blood being sprinkled for the offering.
But the problem here is twofold. One, the scapegoat isn’t killed, merely let loose into the wilderness, so the analogy with Christ already breaks down at that level; and two, the image surrounding Christ’s sacrifice throughout Scripture is that of the lamb, not the goat. John the Baptist doesn’t proclaim “Behold, the Scapegoat of God, whom God will beat up instead of you!”
The problem is that humans aren’t static entities, like properties in computer code set to true or false, but dynamic beings, which unfortunately means that we rather easily choose to return to wallowing in the mud of sin rather than abiding in Christ. The reason why the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion exist is to account for this fact and to rehabilitate us and re-unite us to Christ when we stumble. These aren’t “things” we “add to,” or “works” we can “boast about”, but gifts God gives us to help us in our weakness.
How in the world is partaking of Holy Communion a “work” on my part? All I “do” is open my mouth. God, through His Church, does the rest. The real question is the means by which God imparts salvation: through an abstract rational assent (which Scripture itself calls the “faith of demons”) , or by tangible means that condescend to our nature as dynamic, corporeal beings?
The issue isn’t Christ’s offering bringing salvation, but our stubborn refusal to abide in it. Empirical observation of how actual Christians act is enough to illustrate this, since - at least in my experience, and that of every Christian I’ve ever known - we obviously continue to sin to varying degrees and must struggle toward holiness.
If one prayed a prayer professing faith in Christ and was immediately perfected by God’s grace then I’d be much more willing to grant the presuppositions of the Calvinist system, but it doesn’t line up with how Christians actually behave; it instead posits a sort of theoretical anthropology (not unlike “systems” in other domains, such as Capitalism or Marxism, which posit how people should/will act in theory, but which break down in practice as human behavior and motivations are more complex than these system posit or are even capable of accounting.)
One reason why I found Orthodoxy convincing is because its anthropology and perspective on these matters line up with how people actually behave “on the ground.” We obviously keep sinning and separate ourselves from God’s grace, so God provides means for us to be reconciled and healed. It’s an eminently practical approach to the spiritual life.
This is really the essential part of synergism, we are empowered by God’s grace to choose to follow Him or reject Him. Our ability to choose is a gift given by God, not some intrinsic property of our own will, which is indeed damaged by sin; but the entire point is that in Christ God heals our nature, thus granting the capacity to choose to abide in Him.
But this is obviously wrong because well-intentioned Christians fail all the time. These kinds of statements sound nice on paper but don’t line up with how people actually behave. It seems far more plausible to me that this is just rhetorical maneuvering and the notion that God either provides no grace, or grace that essentially forces you to do this or that, is a completely arbitrary distinction.
Well, sort of, if you understand “good works” to mean works God does for us to help us rather than “things we do to impress God.” To assume that Orthodox are saying the latter is to anachronistically press into service St. Paul’s rhetoric challenging Jewish self-satisfaction based on pride in their identity (eg., “We have Abraham as our father!”) against Orthodox sacraments. It’s an apples to oranges comparison. The apple can shout all day that the orange is an apple, but if you’re an orange, you find the argument less than convincing.
When I see these sorts of accusations it really betrays that you just don’t have any familiarity with how Orthodox people actually perceive their salvation and relation of “good works” to it. I realize that reading the prayers of the Church and service texts and lives of the Saints is less exciting than theological writings, but if one really wants to understand how we think about all this in practice, going to church services, listening to the prayers, reading the lives of Saints will give a much clearer idea. Our theology is not reflected by Reformed theological mathematics (“If you say X then you really mean Y and Y = Z!”).
What Orthodox saint ever reached the end of their lives proclaiming how confident they were in their own sanctity? Instead they tend to regard themselves as the worst of sinners relying entirely on God’s mercy to save them who can see no good in themselves; but those around them certainly can perceive their holiness. This is all vastly different from the Jewish behavior St. Paul is confronting in his epistles, and to try to utilize St. Paul’s texts in this way is just anachronistic. The round peg of Orthodox soteriology doesn’t fit into the square hole of Calvinism.
Again, Orthodox don’t believe that we freely choose all on our own (which is Pelagianism), but that God grants us the grace to be able to choose freely. The real question is the nature of God’s grace: is it an on/off switch, or a healing of our ability to choose to respond to Him? God doesn’t make us act, but enables us to act. That is the Orthodox perspective.
Calvinists trying to frame this as us asserting we’re saved by our good works, or that God’s grace is somehow weak and ineffective, is just rhetorical evasion that misses what we actually believe, a notion of God’s grace that exists outside of the arbitrary parameters of the Reformed system. Iacobus’s post right above mine does an excellent job of explaining this by analogy.
This is a great illustration of the problem with the Reformed system, which doesn’t seem to acknowledge that our nature is actually healed by Christ; the Reformed system seems to treat Christians as though they are still subject to the same behavioral parameters as heathens, but have their cosmic legal status altered by Christ.
