Can you go to youtube, and look at the videos on Divine Justice. Please tell me what you think. It will take time to go through all 13 videos, but at the end the gentleman in the video explains that the reason for Christ's coming and subsequent death on the cross was not to REPAY the Divine Justice. It was to give us life.
However, what I fail to understand from his perspective is WHY does Christ's death therefore give us life if he states clearly in his videos that it was NOT to repay the Divine Justice?
The videos argue VERY WELL the elements that St Athanasious raises concerning Justice (and the law), yet he states, using other sources (including St. Athanasious) es that God the Father DID NOT require Christ's death to be essential for Him to reconcile us back to Him, yet it was more of a "life transfusion".
I'm not sure from reading this what you are trying to ask either.
As Father Peter and many others recommended, you really do need to read On the Incarnation, because many of the questions you are asking are answered very directly.
Chapter 1: God created man in His image. He made man incorruptible and with the potential for immortality. God gave man the ability to choose Him or reject Him. Man failed at this, consequently, man became corruptible, and the image of God in man was tarnished. Man became subject to death because he spurned the grace given to him by God in their original innocence. They left that grace for the natural law of death, since man was created from earth and was finite. So, man was subject to death, his nature had fallen, and the image of God in him had been tarnished. The consequence of sin was death, because we lost that grace that was given us.
Chapter 2 and 3: This created a dilemma, should God abandon His creation, should He destroy His creation? It was unworthy of God to let man simply die, that the devil would win, even when He is able to save His creation. It would also mean that He let enemies take His people and did nothing about it (Athanasius gives the example that even an earthly king wouldn't do that).
Man could not "repent" because it wasn't a physical mistake that could simply be rectified. Man's very nature had changed. Man, had also gone so far from the knowledge of God, inventing idols for himself and worshipping creatures instead of the creator. We became so mired in sin that we were totally corrupt and distant from the knowledge of God.
God gave safeguards to help us know Him: nature, the Law, and holy men (the prophets) so that someone was always pointing at God, but this was not enough.
No, the only way was for Himself to come to fix it. Why?
- He as God is immortal and incorruptible, and hence can conquer death and grant incorruption - He is the Image Himself, and thus is the only one who can restore the image in us
Christ took human flesh with the soul intent of killing it. By uniting Himself to this body, though that body die, yet it could not remain dead because it was united with life (the slaying of death), by His resurrecting it, it was no longer corrupt.
Chapter 4:
Despite the talk of corruption/mortality etc... There was still a debt that had to be paid: namely that all men had to die.
"But beyond all this, there was a debt owing which must needs be paid ; for, as I said before, all men were due to die. Here, then, is the second reason why the Word dwelt among us, namely that having proved His Godhead by His works, He might offer the sacrifice on behalf of all, surrendering His own temple to death in place of all, to settle man's account with death and free him from the primal transgression."
The indwelling of the Logos loosed the body from it's natural susceptibility to corruptibility. The death of all was consummated in the Lord's body, He being immortal and Divine was able to accomplish both of these.
I will not go through the rest of the chapters because I think what you've discussed thus far is answered.
The Lord came to restore us to the knowledge of the Father, He came to restore the image, and He came also to fulfill the propitiation of sin on our behalf.
There is *still* a concept of Divine Justice, even if we're not going to make everything legalistic. Yes, the Lord's coming was not just about making the Father happy for some set of crimes man had waged - it was far far far more than that, but there is still a concept of debt that the Fathers teach.
Christ came to bring us back to the knowledge of the Father, abolish death, restore and renew man, make us incorruptible, but also to fulfill the sacrifice for all men at all times and reconcile us again with the Father.
Christ could not (as far as we dare say what God could and could not do) die simply from old age. That is just part of being human. He needed to die undeserved death as a punishment, and so he was hung on the cross between two thieves and died an accursed death - for cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree.
Why did Christ need to die an undeserved death?
- is that a fair question?
And then let's follow that question to its logical conclusion.
Most likely you'll say - well, he died an undeserved death as punishment for us who deserved death.
How does that help us?
It helps us because he paid the price of our sins to the Father.
But surely God the Father did NOT insist on getting "pound of Flesh" in order to appease His Divine Justice? Surely it was NOT the only reason for Christ's suffering and death??
But how does His death ultimately give us life... it seems that it just repays God back to appease His Divine Justice. I think you should all see the videos on youtube 1st.
Please see this. He presents St Athanasious's teachings on the Incarnation of the Word, but he argues very fluently that to think GOd came down to appease His Divine justice is nonsensical.
But my question is so simple: what I fail to understand from this video is - if it wasn't then to repay the Divine Justice, then what exactly did the Human Nature and Divine Nature - when going through pain and suffering and injustice and death - actually do for us in terms of saving us??
How does Christ's death actually save us??
I don't think Mr Mina Mikhail is saying that there was no justice, but to view the entire crucifixion of Christ as just a means to REPAY the Divine Justice is not really how we were saved, but I fail to understand from him how then we benefit from Christ's death?
Many thanks for your well thought out response. I elaborated the question out below. But as an immortal being, how does Christ's death nullify/correct/help our corrupt nature?
How? what does that do for us?
OK.. we can argue that the Divine Justice was a by-product; but it wasn't the ONLY reason.. yes, I think we are all now in agreement of this.. but how exactly does Christ's death give us life?? What exactly does that do?
i actually listen to most of the videos and i have asked some knowledgeable servants about this and they all said he's just saying what's right. you can see how he shows you everything from our own fathers' writings....even those that we would never think about that way.
I think the whole idea is the choice of words. Anba Rafail spoke about this when he came to my church before. He explains the plan of salvation and how it was "Salvation" not really "redemption." He said when you use the word "redeem" doesn't explain the whole plan right. He called the person (us, the human race) who becomes "mobarrar" not "baree-e." Mobarrar means justified not innocent. Because we are still guilty of the sin. the only difference is that and justified what we did through His death.
Fortunatus, thank you for a very well thought out and helpful answer.
QT. There is an excellent book called 'The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria' by Daniel Keating. It's well written and comprehensive and I didn't find anything inimical to our own Orthodoxy in it. Far from it. It was very helpful indeed.
The chapters are called:
The Divine Plan of Salvation in Cyril The Gift of Divine Life The Reception of Divine Life Partakers of the Divine Nature Conclusions: Cyril's Narrative of Divine Life Cyril in Comparison
If you have access to the athens network at all it is in the Oxford Scholarship Online collection. Otherwise it is published by Oxford University Press.
Briefly. He shows that for St Cyril, Christ effects the renewal of human nature in His own humanity, and destroys death in Himself, and then mediates this new life through the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. When we are united with Christ - 'it is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me'.
His first chapter is very good and shows how salvation is effected by the whole incarnation and not merely at one point. Keating says, 'I will trace Cyril's narrative of salvation from the baptism of Jesus through his death and resurrection to his ascension and enthronement, in order to show that, in Cyril's view, the re-creation, sanctification, and divinization of human nature is completed first in Christ himself'.
We are not 'saved' apart from Christ. We are only 'saved' IN Christ. Just as we experience death IN Adam.
He accomplishes what He desires for us in His own flesh, and then by uniting us to Him we are able to experience this also, passing through a mortal death into true life.
I can send you a pdf of this first chapter if you like? It is not very long and is very good. The whole book is brilliant. It is rooted in the writings of St Cyril. I'm about to re-read the chapter myself to renew my understanding of what St Cyril says.
It makes sense - it makes much more sense what you are saying than what the CoC sometimes presents to us (i.e the Tripple A view of Salvation - Aquinas, Augustinus, Anselm).
Anselm's view is what Mr Mikhail was talking about: "The punishment is proportional to the STATUS of the offended party. The offended party is eternal, so an eternal sacrifice is required".
However, what you are saying seems more logical.
I do not DOUBT that there was Divine Justice. There was - but it was a by-product... and natural consequence of Christ's sacrifice.
Please continue on the same vein you started in your last post... how is it we are saved "IN" Christ???
And also, why was Christ's suffering & death an important aspect of His plan in saving us? Why was that an essential component?
Many thanks for your well thought out response. I elaborated the question out below. But as an immortal being, how does Christ's death nullify/correct/help our corrupt nature?
How? what does that do for us?
OK.. we can argue that the Divine Justice was a by-product; but it wasn't the ONLY reason.. yes, I think we are all now in agreement of this.. but how exactly does Christ's death give us life?? What exactly does that do?
+Irini nem ehmot
QA,
I would caution that you are being very selective with what you debate - you're taking one part of an entire picture, trying to apply/negate answers that relate to an entire picture and trying to say "it doesn't do this piece". I'm not saying this argumentatively, but just saying that you're mixing arguments and winding up with a product that maybe irrational to you.
Christ's death was not *JUST* about correcting our nature, so you can't zoom in on just that. Christ restored our nature by bringing it into perfection through Himself. The death was for bringing us life, the death was for fulfilling the debt (as described by Athanasius), the death was to be able to free us from death...the death has so many reasons. So you can't just say the "nature" because that's part of the whole "package" of Incarnation. God renewed our nature by taking it upon Himself and being perfect. He, being THE IMAGE (not AN image) of God, was the only One Who could do that. So I'm having trouble making sense of your question.
Comments
Do explain what is really nagging at you and then perhaps others can help.
God bless
Father Peter
Can you go to youtube, and look at the videos on Divine Justice. Please tell me what you think. It will take time to go through all 13 videos, but at the end the gentleman in the video explains that the reason for Christ's coming and subsequent death on the cross was not to REPAY the Divine Justice. It was to give us life.
However, what I fail to understand from his perspective is WHY does Christ's death therefore give us life if he states clearly in his videos that it was NOT to repay the Divine Justice?
The videos argue VERY WELL the elements that St Athanasious raises concerning Justice (and the law), yet he states, using other sources (including St. Athanasious) es that God the Father DID NOT require Christ's death to be essential for Him to reconcile us back to Him, yet it was more of a "life transfusion".
Thanks
God bless
Father Peter
The following links might be of help:
http://www.geocities.com/derghazar/PASSION.DOC
http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?s=f3b00a2eb899daad4c6eaaa9a0c095cb&t=1591
Dear QT_PA_2T,
I'm not sure from reading this what you are trying to ask either.
As Father Peter and many others recommended, you really do need to read On the Incarnation, because many of the questions you are asking are answered very directly.
Chapter 1:
God created man in His image. He made man incorruptible and with the potential for immortality. God gave man the ability to choose Him or reject Him. Man failed at this, consequently, man became corruptible, and the image of God in man was tarnished. Man became subject to death because he spurned the grace given to him by God in their original innocence. They left that grace for the natural law of death, since man was created from earth and was finite. So, man was subject to death, his nature had fallen, and the image of God in him had been tarnished. The consequence of sin was death, because we lost that grace that was given us.
Chapter 2 and 3:
This created a dilemma, should God abandon His creation, should He destroy His creation? It was unworthy of God to let man simply die, that the devil would win, even when He is able to save His creation. It would also mean that He let enemies take His people and did nothing about it (Athanasius gives the example that even an earthly king wouldn't do that).
Man could not "repent" because it wasn't a physical mistake that could simply be rectified. Man's very nature had changed. Man, had also gone so far from the knowledge of God, inventing idols for himself and worshipping creatures instead of the creator. We became so mired in sin that we were totally corrupt and distant from the knowledge of God.
God gave safeguards to help us know Him: nature, the Law, and holy men (the prophets) so that someone was always pointing at God, but this was not enough.
No, the only way was for Himself to come to fix it. Why?
- He as God is immortal and incorruptible, and hence can conquer death and grant incorruption
- He is the Image Himself, and thus is the only one who can restore the image in us
Christ took human flesh with the soul intent of killing it. By uniting Himself to this body, though that body die, yet it could not remain dead because it was united with life (the slaying of death), by His resurrecting it, it was no longer corrupt.
Chapter 4:
Despite the talk of corruption/mortality etc... There was still a debt that had to be paid: namely that all men had to die.
"But beyond all this, there was a debt owing which must needs be paid ; for, as I said before, all men were due to die. Here, then, is the second reason why the Word dwelt among us, namely that having proved His Godhead by His works, He might offer the sacrifice on behalf of all, surrendering His own temple to death in place of all, to settle man's account with death and free him from the primal transgression."
The indwelling of the Logos loosed the body from it's natural susceptibility to corruptibility. The death of all was consummated in the Lord's body, He being immortal and Divine was able to accomplish both of these.
I will not go through the rest of the chapters because I think what you've discussed thus far is answered.
The Lord came to restore us to the knowledge of the Father, He came to restore the image, and He came also to fulfill the propitiation of sin on our behalf.
There is *still* a concept of Divine Justice, even if we're not going to make everything legalistic. Yes, the Lord's coming was not just about making the Father happy for some set of crimes man had waged - it was far far far more than that, but there is still a concept of debt that the Fathers teach.
Christ came to bring us back to the knowledge of the Father, abolish death, restore and renew man, make us incorruptible, but also to fulfill the sacrifice for all men at all times and reconcile us again with the Father.
Pray for me, please,
Fortunatus
Christ could not (as far as we dare say what God could and could not do) die simply from old age. That is just part of being human. He needed to die undeserved death as a punishment, and so he was hung on the cross between two thieves and died an accursed death - for cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree.
Why did Christ need to die an undeserved death?
- is that a fair question?
And then let's follow that question to its logical conclusion.
Most likely you'll say - well, he died an undeserved death as punishment for us who deserved death.
How does that help us?
It helps us because he paid the price of our sins to the Father.
But surely God the Father did NOT insist on getting "pound of Flesh" in order to appease His Divine Justice? Surely it was NOT the only reason for Christ's suffering and death??
But how does His death ultimately give us life... it seems that it just repays God back to appease His Divine Justice. I think you should all see the videos on youtube 1st.
Please see this. He presents St Athanasious's teachings on the Incarnation of the Word, but he argues very fluently that to think GOd came down to appease His Divine justice is nonsensical.
But my question is so simple: what I fail to understand from this video is - if it wasn't then to repay the Divine Justice, then what exactly did the Human Nature and Divine Nature - when going through pain and suffering and injustice and death - actually do for us in terms of saving us??
How does Christ's death actually save us??
I don't think Mr Mina Mikhail is saying that there was no justice, but to view the entire crucifixion of Christ as just a means to REPAY the Divine Justice is not really how we were saved, but I fail to understand from him how then we benefit from Christ's death?
Pray for me, please,
Fortunatus
Many thanks for your well thought out response. I elaborated the question out below.
But as an immortal being, how does Christ's death nullify/correct/help our corrupt nature?
How? what does that do for us?
OK.. we can argue that the Divine Justice was a by-product; but it wasn't the ONLY reason.. yes, I think we are all now in agreement of this.. but how exactly does Christ's death give us life?? What exactly does that do?
I think the whole idea is the choice of words. Anba Rafail spoke about this when he came to my church before. He explains the plan of salvation and how it was "Salvation" not really "redemption." He said when you use the word "redeem" doesn't explain the whole plan right. He called the person (us, the human race) who becomes "mobarrar" not "baree-e." Mobarrar means justified not innocent. Because we are still guilty of the sin. the only difference is that and justified what we did through His death.
QT. There is an excellent book called 'The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria' by Daniel Keating. It's well written and comprehensive and I didn't find anything inimical to our own Orthodoxy in it. Far from it. It was very helpful indeed.
The chapters are called:
The Divine Plan of Salvation in Cyril
The Gift of Divine Life
The Reception of Divine Life
Partakers of the Divine Nature
Conclusions: Cyril's Narrative of Divine Life
Cyril in Comparison
If you have access to the athens network at all it is in the Oxford Scholarship Online collection. Otherwise it is published by Oxford University Press.
Briefly. He shows that for St Cyril, Christ effects the renewal of human nature in His own humanity, and destroys death in Himself, and then mediates this new life through the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. When we are united with Christ - 'it is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me'.
His first chapter is very good and shows how salvation is effected by the whole incarnation and not merely at one point. Keating says, 'I will trace Cyril's narrative of salvation from the baptism of Jesus through his death and resurrection to his ascension and enthronement, in order to show that, in Cyril's view, the re-creation, sanctification, and divinization of human nature is completed first in Christ himself'.
We are not 'saved' apart from Christ. We are only 'saved' IN Christ. Just as we experience death IN Adam.
He accomplishes what He desires for us in His own flesh, and then by uniting us to Him we are able to experience this also, passing through a mortal death into true life.
I can send you a pdf of this first chapter if you like? It is not very long and is very good. The whole book is brilliant. It is rooted in the writings of St Cyril. I'm about to re-read the chapter myself to renew my understanding of what St Cyril says.
Father Peter
I think now we are getting somewhere.
I liked your last post.
It makes sense - it makes much more sense what you are saying than what the CoC sometimes presents to us (i.e the Tripple A view of Salvation - Aquinas, Augustinus, Anselm).
Anselm's view is what Mr Mikhail was talking about: "The punishment is proportional to the STATUS of the offended party. The offended party is eternal, so an eternal sacrifice is required".
However, what you are saying seems more logical.
I do not DOUBT that there was Divine Justice. There was - but it was a by-product... and natural consequence of Christ's sacrifice.
Please continue on the same vein you started in your last post... how is it we are saved "IN" Christ???
And also, why was Christ's suffering & death an important aspect of His plan in saving us? Why was that an essential component?
[quote author=fortunatus link=topic=7812.msg101679#msg101679 date=1239248179]
Pray for me, please,
Fortunatus
Many thanks for your well thought out response. I elaborated the question out below.
But as an immortal being, how does Christ's death nullify/correct/help our corrupt nature?
How? what does that do for us?
OK.. we can argue that the Divine Justice was a by-product; but it wasn't the ONLY reason.. yes, I think we are all now in agreement of this.. but how exactly does Christ's death give us life?? What exactly does that do?
+Irini nem ehmot
QA,
I would caution that you are being very selective with what you debate - you're taking one part of an entire picture, trying to apply/negate answers that relate to an entire picture and trying to say "it doesn't do this piece". I'm not saying this argumentatively, but just saying that you're mixing arguments and winding up with a product that maybe irrational to you.
Christ's death was not *JUST* about correcting our nature, so you can't zoom in on just that. Christ restored our nature by bringing it into perfection through Himself. The death was for bringing us life, the death was for fulfilling the debt (as described by Athanasius), the death was to be able to free us from death...the death has so many reasons. So you can't just say the "nature" because that's part of the whole "package" of Incarnation. God renewed our nature by taking it upon Himself and being perfect. He, being THE IMAGE (not AN image) of God, was the only One Who could do that. So I'm having trouble making sense of your question.
Again, pray for me.
Fortunatus