This is excellent. I'm glad you fleshed out what started as a hurried note. I particularly like this:
"If a path claims it is the only path, then it has in fact cut itself off from the infinite, just as Orthodox theology teaches that no collection of concepts, dogmatic or otherwise, can define God. A path remains a path to the infinite insofar as it recognizes its finitude, that it is a sign pointing towards its own deification as self-transcendence in the divine that it signifies."
I've encountered so many Orthodox, predominately online, unsurprisingly, that lose site of that in their puffed-up, rigid viewpoint. Words like yours compel me to keep at least one foot in the proverbial door as I continue my sometimes disillusioning exploration of Orthodoxy. Thank you.
Like your comment friend and hoping you continue to test the rivers of waters of Orthodoxy although God knows they have been muddyied by the many of us sinners who come to be cleansed. Keep swimming and I believe God will bring us all to that pure Ocean of Love
The analogy of image and archetype to convey the relationship between the Church and God strikes me as an interesting one. I can’t quite formulate my thoughts but it appears to mitigate against a strict identification between Christ and the Church in history. There is a distance (an orientation toward, of course) I suppose, between an image and its archetype, which affirms the Church as a “becoming” kind of organism. Of course, this is just the sort of thing we get from DBH in Tradition and Apocalypse.
Admittedly, I’m not sure I follow you on the idea of the Church contributing to the work of deification via its own specific path. Wouldn’t Maximus only want to affirm the fact of an ongoing universal incarnation because of the Church a priori? The Church is not one deifying community amongst many, but is the continuation of Christ’s specific tropos which, when considered eschatologically, envelopes the whole of creation. I hope I’m being clear here. The Church is not one option amongst many, but is the microcosm of the entire world in its journey of becoming Christ. The Church then, as Maximus attests to, encompasses numerous languages, customs, ways of worship (much to the disappointment of the exclusivists) and its diversity will only increase, as the leaven of the Spirit works throughout the entire dough of creation. I might be wrong here, but I think that is what Maximus is saying across his wider corpus, no?
You are correct yes. When I talked about the Church as a specific path I was referring to it as the specific groups of Christians in their historically conditioned communities, which should not reduce the deifying work of God in creation to the limits of their own conditioned expressions of this work.
This is so wonderful Noah! Amazing I was just texting a friend this morning and thinking along these lines of course not so theologically but thinking that there is no separation between God’s people! There can be none if we are in Christ!
Second reading… you know I will have a third and fourth. Lol! The quote by St Maximos is powerful! And I love your comment directly after it, “ The Church is the Church insofar as it has the same activity as God, that is, the overcoming of all created divisions within humanity, in its progressive divinization.” Yes! I am in 100% agreement! I do think however that how the Church works to carry out this “ overcoming” is the practical applied daily life part that each one of us as the Body of Christ need to also take for. It is much simpler to look at the world stage and point out problems than to look within to heal those same problems. Thank you Noah
This is excellent. I'm glad you fleshed out what started as a hurried note. I particularly like this:
"If a path claims it is the only path, then it has in fact cut itself off from the infinite, just as Orthodox theology teaches that no collection of concepts, dogmatic or otherwise, can define God. A path remains a path to the infinite insofar as it recognizes its finitude, that it is a sign pointing towards its own deification as self-transcendence in the divine that it signifies."
I've encountered so many Orthodox, predominately online, unsurprisingly, that lose site of that in their puffed-up, rigid viewpoint. Words like yours compel me to keep at least one foot in the proverbial door as I continue my sometimes disillusioning exploration of Orthodoxy. Thank you.
Like your comment friend and hoping you continue to test the rivers of waters of Orthodoxy although God knows they have been muddyied by the many of us sinners who come to be cleansed. Keep swimming and I believe God will bring us all to that pure Ocean of Love
Thank you 🙏
The analogy of image and archetype to convey the relationship between the Church and God strikes me as an interesting one. I can’t quite formulate my thoughts but it appears to mitigate against a strict identification between Christ and the Church in history. There is a distance (an orientation toward, of course) I suppose, between an image and its archetype, which affirms the Church as a “becoming” kind of organism. Of course, this is just the sort of thing we get from DBH in Tradition and Apocalypse.
Admittedly, I’m not sure I follow you on the idea of the Church contributing to the work of deification via its own specific path. Wouldn’t Maximus only want to affirm the fact of an ongoing universal incarnation because of the Church a priori? The Church is not one deifying community amongst many, but is the continuation of Christ’s specific tropos which, when considered eschatologically, envelopes the whole of creation. I hope I’m being clear here. The Church is not one option amongst many, but is the microcosm of the entire world in its journey of becoming Christ. The Church then, as Maximus attests to, encompasses numerous languages, customs, ways of worship (much to the disappointment of the exclusivists) and its diversity will only increase, as the leaven of the Spirit works throughout the entire dough of creation. I might be wrong here, but I think that is what Maximus is saying across his wider corpus, no?
You are correct yes. When I talked about the Church as a specific path I was referring to it as the specific groups of Christians in their historically conditioned communities, which should not reduce the deifying work of God in creation to the limits of their own conditioned expressions of this work.
☦️ ⚜️ Saint Maximus the Confessor,
pray for us! 🌐 ⛪ ✍🏼 🔔 🩸🕯️📿🕊️
Being, Well-being, Eternal being:
to perceive the logoi of things. ♥️
This is so wonderful Noah! Amazing I was just texting a friend this morning and thinking along these lines of course not so theologically but thinking that there is no separation between God’s people! There can be none if we are in Christ!
Second reading… you know I will have a third and fourth. Lol! The quote by St Maximos is powerful! And I love your comment directly after it, “ The Church is the Church insofar as it has the same activity as God, that is, the overcoming of all created divisions within humanity, in its progressive divinization.” Yes! I am in 100% agreement! I do think however that how the Church works to carry out this “ overcoming” is the practical applied daily life part that each one of us as the Body of Christ need to also take for. It is much simpler to look at the world stage and point out problems than to look within to heal those same problems. Thank you Noah