One of the standard Evangelical definitions of mystery takes all the mystery out of mystery. That particular definition claims that there is no mystery to mystery. In other words, the claim is that a New Testament mystery is only something that was mysterious in the Old Testament but that is no longer mysterious in the […]
A non-theological appreciation of free will and the sovereignty of God
A person commented the following on my post yesterday: You know, the more I read and learn concerning Orthodox theology, the more I see an acceptance of paradox that even exceeds my native Lutheranism. My reply is that it has more to do with the idea of mystery, but rather than try to explain it […]
Free will and salvation
I quoted both Patriarch Dositheus and Metropolitan Kallistos yesterday to point out to my Orthodox brethren that some of them go to the other extreme from Saint Augustine and almost end up claiming that our free will was, at best, barely damaged. But, both an approved Orthodox confession and a current Metropolitan who is a […]
Free will is not simply a philosophical definition
If you remember my first posting two days ago, I commented that I had a problem with some of my fellow Orthodox. It is in that vein that I continue the discussion. Some of my fellow Orthodox react so strongly to Augustinianism, and its derivative Calvinism, that they go to the point of going to […]
We are fallen and damaged
We Orthodox often do not take seriously enough what it means that we are fallen and damaged. It is true that we do not believe in various forms of total depravity. However, all too often we react against extreme forms of total depravity by going to the other extreme and almost denying that we are […]
God, science, and Fr. Thomas Hopko
Thanks to a friend, Father Orthoduck is going to give you a link rather than trying to continue the subject of Christianity and science. Why so? Because the link is to a series of podcasts on Darwin and Christianity by Father Thomas Hopko. Now Fr. Hopko is one of the leading Orthodox theologians in the […]
The god of the gaps
A person who commented on yesterday’s post had some things to say with which I agree, even though s/he meant them as a criticism. Nevertheless, it does allow me to make a couple of points. Speaking of religious scientists s/he said: There’s only a problem when they invoke god, also known as magic, to solve […]
Current cosmology and the Church
As I commented yesterday, the Church has often had a hard time knowing how to respond to advances in cosmology. There has been a tendency to go to one of two extremes. One extreme is that most often cited by the news media, the Galileo trial and the Scopes trial, one by the Roman Catholic […]
Current cosmology and God
Today, atoms make up about 5% of the universe; dark matter makes up about 23%; and what is very strange is that 72% is made up of this dark energy. — David Spurgo, Ph.D. In the last century we have come up from thinking that the entire universe was within our own Milky Way to knowing […]
Limitations of science
On a recent post about science, one of the persons commenting brought up some reasonable points about science. But demonstrating bias highlights other problems in modern American discourse – i.e., the false conclusiveness we give to science, and the false distinction we ascribe to it. Science demands repeatable observation to correct bias, but it can’t […]
