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Belief in Christ and Regenration
Does the Coptic Orthodox Church believe that man (impaired by fallen nature and separated from the Holy Spirit) seeks out and believes in Christ on his own or does the Church believe that God must first regenerate man (due to his fallen nature) in order for him believe and seek Christ and salvation through Him?
Comments
Please pray for me.
(Correct me if I am wrong) If you meant regeneration as in being baptized than yes, because we still have to die by the death and corruption we inherited from Adam and Eve when they fell. But thanks to the Lord Our God and Savior Jesus Christ our nature was resurrected and we were freed from hell, sin, and death. Those who are not baptized do not have the Holy Spirit within them (I think). God bless.
Please pray for me.
What if someone was outside of the Church (i.e. was not born into a Christian family and therefore not baptized as a child) what is the causation of their belief and/or seeking God: their own good will apart from the aid of the Holy Spirit or by the Holy Spirit drawing them unto God so that they can believe and be healed of their sins?
I guess my follow up question is aimed more at those born outside of the Church and how they are brought to faith in God: by their own will or by the move of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts.
(Correct me if I am wrong) Okay firstly, no one is good on their own anything we have whether it be a loving heart or any virtue is a blessing from God. In addition, the way I like to think of it is this: The Holy Trinity is a loving father who shepherd's us all to Himself. While either Christian or non Christian alike we may stray very far away from Him, His loving voice calls us every day and night through friends, parents, and saints. Of course we being blind and prideful have little to no faith that He is there, and we would rather lead our selves and remain in the pleasure of sin than be guided to the light. Therefore whether you are Christian or not, the Holy Spirit calls us all to follow Him. All though being called by the Holy Spirit does not mean He is dwelling in you. For non Christians the Holy Spirit guides you to be baptized and repent, so your nature will be resurrected and your sins wiped, than the Holy Trinity can dwell with you and guide you. For Christians instead of a second baptism it will be repentance. If you did not understand what I mentioned above don't hesitate to ask this is a really tricky subject and I don't want to confuse you or myself. So I will ask Abouna or a really trusted servant. God bless please pray for me.
I apologize for such a late response, but you were very clear in your explination. Thank you for taking the time to respond. :)
(1)Some Protestant denominations, from which I come from, teach that God must first "regenerate" you before you are able to respond to God's call to baptism and repentence. (2)However, as I read the Scriptures I find it hard to reconcile this belief as many passages seem to require a response to the actions of God. While he may call you through various means and through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are held responsible for how we respond to his callings.
Would you agree with the second view that I laid out above?
Please remember me in your prayers.
(Correct me if I am wrong) Honestly, I don't know what you meant by regenerate? Do you mean accept Christ as your personal God and Saviour? And yes, you are right for part two because we all have free will. So you can choose to ignore His callings, His love, and His grace. Or you can choose to throw away your pride and repent asking Him to guide and teach you, for He only knows what is true in the world of deceitful lies. Might I ask (you don't have to answer), why did you come to Orthodoxy? And how did you know about orthodoxy? Thank you for all your. God bless you and all of us. Please pray for me.
Regeneration, at least as Protestants define it, is "the act of God whereby He renews the spiritual condition of a sinner. It is a spiritual change brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit so that the person then possesses new life, eternal life (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry)."
My background is Protestant/Evangelical Christianity (Presbyterian/Lutheran) theology and regeneration plays a significant role in the understanding of salvation. In their view man, in his fallen nature, is dead in his sins and is unable to respond to or seek after God unless God first changes or regenerates them so that their sinful nature is changed (cf. Ezekiel 36:24-28). In this state, man will always choose to reject God and live in sin unless God intervenes through regeneration. However, as I understand, the Orthodox Church's view is that although man is fallen, he is only "injured" and is still capable of responding to or rejecting God's call to salvation. I hope this clarifies what I meant by regeneration.
In regards to Orthodoxy, I am not yet Orthodox. I have been trying to learn more about the Orthodox Church. That is why I have questions such as the one in the original thread as I try to understand the differences and similarities between the form of Christianity that I now follow and that of the Orthodox. The reason that I began looking into the Orthodox Church was dissatisfaction with the lack of continuity that seems to exist between the modern Protestant/Evangelical churches and what the Church is described as in Scripture and from the writings of the early church fathers.
Please pray for me in my journey to the truth and a closer relationship with your Lord.
there is a basic difference between orthodox and protestant theology on this count. Having been protestant for many years before i became orthodox 2 years ago, i found that the orthodox explanation made more sense.
in fact, in general the orthodox view of salvation (a work in progress) makes more sense too.
i can remember spending a lot of my childhood searching the Bible for 'the Jesus prayer', you know the 2 or 3 lines at the end of any protestant explanation of God that immediately makes you a Christian (irrespective of your level of understanding of it) as soon as you pray it.
i thought john 3:16 was referring to more than just a one-minute prayer, and would always get stuck in the letters of james and john, where it is clear that the life your live and your love for your brothers (shown by actions) demonstrates your faith.
no-one could adequately explain to me the origin of the 'Jesus prayer', but i was sure God existed (i had seen the results of His love in my life and others), so i ignored this 'little' problem as the rest of the faith broadly made sense.
that is, until i found the coptic church. there i slowly realised that salvation was not a one-off event that you can either 'loose' or 'not loose', depending on your church's theology, but in fact a lifelong process, that starts with repentance and continues with regular attention to spiritual life with partaking of Holy Communion, 'check-ups' with a priest, sorry, i mean confession (!) and lots of personal prayer and Bible study.
as long as you continue in this process, you are on your way to heaven ('saved' to use the term in it's protestant sense). but if you turn from God, live a sinful life and laugh at the church, then you are in danger of hell.
most of us fall somewhere between those 2 categories (if we are honest), that is why we are always asking for prayers from our brothers and sisters in the faith, and why we take care about our spiritual life.
it's a bit like we try to be humble, not to arrogantly say 'i'm saved, i can now relax and not worry or take care about my spiritual life'.
hey, maybe we focus excessively on our sins, and occasionally forget to praise God for His very great salvation.
but i think that's better than to spend so much time singing and celebrating about eternal life and miss the point of our Lord and Saviour Jesus' suffering and our responsibility to live for Him.
hope this helps, may God guide you, and please pray for me too.
closing question: when Jesus called Lazarus back to life, which part of his dead body would have responded to Jesus' call, if it wasn't for His life giving (regenerating!) Word?..
(1)Some Protestant denominations, from which I come from, teach that God must first "regenerate" you before you are able to respond to God's call to baptism and repentence. (2)However, as I read the Scriptures I find it hard to reconcile this belief as many passages seem to require a response to the actions of God. While he may call you through various means and through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are held responsible for how we respond to his callings.
Would you agree with the second view that I laid out above?
Please remember me in your prayers.
you have highlighted a genuine problem here. unfortunately, many protestants have no answer to this. but some have been granted the grace to understand it.. i will try my best to encapsulate the main idea in the following lines.
1. God calls everyone to repentance.
2. Repentance is an act of faith.
3. Faith itself is not something we are able to produce, but is a gift from God.
4. If God does not grant you the gift of faith, you will not respond to His calling, therefore you will not be able to repent!
( 'God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy and He hardens whom He wants to harden!' Rom. 9.18)
5. Legitimate question: why are you still held responsible, since you were not granted the means (faith) to repent??!!
('Why does God still blame us, for who can resist His will?' Rom.9:19)
6. Saint Paul gives us a very uncomfortable answer: 'But who are you, o man, to talk back to God? shall what is formed say to him who formed it 'why did you make me like this?'' (Rom:9:20)
Sometimes we find it difficult to understand that our rights in relation to God are not based on the political framework reflected in what we call 'Human Rights'. St. Paul himself recognises it when he says: 'Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!... Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsellor?' (Rom. 11:33-34).
We need to learn from the Bible that, when it comes to God, we have no rights except eternal damnation. Our salvation through faith is utterly dependent on His GRACE AND MERCY! we cannot CLAIM it, we can only BEG for it, and whoever doesn't get it, cannot 'claim' it as a birth right.
All we can do is to beg God for His mercy. If we don't get it we cannot 'take Him to court' claiming that He wronged us. He does not owe us anything and He never did! 'Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?' (Rom.11:35) Therefore He can rightly blame us even if He chooses not to grant us the gift of faith.
John 3:18 reads: 'whoever believes in Him is not condemned but whoever does not believe stands condemned already...' Please note that this is not an 'interpretation' of the biblical text, this is a biblical quote asserting that appart from faith, people are already condemned. If it weren't for the gift of faith, people rightly deserve condemnation.
The bottom line is ...if you are not happy with being condemned already, you better beg for mercy rather than seek the rights you don't even have.
when you read the first point of my reply, it spells: God calls everyone to repentance.
to this you reply.... ' 'however, i think God calls everyone'.
???.. :o... ??...
takin into consideration your level of reasoning, i am compelled to postpone any further arguments until evidence of sound judgment show through.
thanks for trying though..
i like to be called 'coptic friend'!
will write more when i also have a theology degree...
ha ha
;)
:)
you have highlighted a genuine problem here. unfortunately, many protestants have no answer to this. but some have been granted the grace to understand it.. i will try my best to encapsulate the main idea in the following lines.
1. God calls everyone to repentance.
2. Repentance is an act of faith.
3. Faith itself is not something we are able to produce, but is a gift from God.
4. If God does not grant you the gift of faith, you will not respond to His calling, therefore you will not be able to repent!
( 'God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy and He hardens whom He wants to harden!' Rom. 9.18)
5. Legitimate question: why are you still held responsible, since you were not granted the means (faith) to repent??!!
('Why does God still blame us, for who can resist His will?' Rom.9:19)
6. Saint Paul gives us a very uncomfortable answer: 'But who are you, o man, to talk back to God? shall what is formed say to him who formed it 'why did you make me like this?'' (Rom:9:20)
Sometimes we find it difficult to understand that our rights in relation to God are not based on the political framework reflected in what we call 'Human Rights'. St. Paul himself recognises it when he says: 'Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!... Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsellor?' (Rom. 11:33-34).
We need to learn from the Bible that, when it comes to God, we have no rights except eternal damnation. Our salvation through faith is utterly dependent on His GRACE AND MERCY! we cannot CLAIM it, we can only BEG for it, and whoever doesn't get it, cannot 'claim' it as a birth right.
All we can do is to beg God for His mercy. If we don't get it we cannot 'take Him to court' claiming that He wronged us. He does not owe us anything and He never did! 'Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?' (Rom.11:35) Therefore He can rightly blame us even if He chooses not to grant us the gift of faith.
John 3:18 reads: 'whoever believes in Him is not condemned but whoever does not believe stands condemned already...' Please note that this is not an 'interpretation' of the biblical text, this is a biblical quote asserting that appart from faith, people are already condemned. If it weren't for the gift of faith, people rightly deserve condemnation.
The bottom line is ...if you are not happy with being condemned already, you better beg for mercy rather than seek the rights you don't even have.
This is somewhat confusing because this is basically a Calvinist/Reformed teaching. All are called to the Gospel but only those whom God has elected unto salvation will respond to the call because he has chosen them and regenerated them.
Indeed it is has explicitly rejected it.
We do not, for one thing, believe that man is unable to respond to God. The Fathers teach that God allowed the soul of man to remain so that it was always looking above and beyond itself for God.
Thank you.
The Church does not proof text in the manner you are asking. The Fathers of the Church teach that the Holy Spirit guides the Church into all truth.
You seem to have slipped in a quote I did not use...
man's (inner and autonomous) ability to respond to God
I never said this. And it is not Orthodox. In what way can a man be autonomous in responding to God? To be autonomous means literally to 'rule oneself'. This is not how Orthodox understand how a man responds to the call of grace. We respond to God because we are not entirely separated from God. The soul retains a certain lightness of being which connects it with the heavenly realm, and when the call of God is heard the soul responds entirely submissively and theo-nomously (that is ruled-by-God), and not ruled-by-self.
We all of us hear the voice of God, it stirs our hearts, but we choose to respond in different ways. Some will indeed act autonomously and will do all they can to drown out the still small voice. It is in their power to do so. But others will respond and be drawn by the heavenly music.
This does not indicate that man is without the need for God. How could it. On the contrary it describes a humanity which is created to need God, and which responds to God unless the will of man be purposely directed to self and sin. Many of us will build up walls to protect us from the divine call, but it can still break through our defences if God chooses, unless we have so hardened our hearts that we will never respond. Many of us will create sinful habits that make it harder to respond, but it takes nothing more than the slightest and weakest response of the will of a man to begin the journey back to God.
Both the call and the grace are of God and are offered to all, but the response to the call is of man.
i still want to know more about that 'response' we human produce when we hear the voice/call of God.
i will attempt here to explain my question: some of our responses in relation to things in life are learnt behaviour and others are instinctive behaviour. for instance, i can learn to like or hate bread but i never learn to be be hungry. I may have learnt from past experiences to like or hate bread. but nobody taught me to be hungry! being hungry is instinctive, natural!
relating emotionally to someone is another example, slightly more complicated though. i can learn to love same sex or opposite sex relationships but 'the need' for emotional relationship is there by default. Although environment might guide/influence the dynamics of our emotions, the prime matter (the emotions in this case) is still there. When i say 'still there' i mean i am not 'the source' of these emotions, i am only the 'processing device' of these emotions.
The problem is that some people who are inclined for homosexual relationships claim that they are born like this, they have not learnt it. They claim that their homosexual emotional inclination is there by default. I am not discussing here the morality of homosexual relationships but instead i want to draw the attention to the fact that people's need for relationship is a default. The attraction/emotion is there before they chose the object of their emotions. This principle is applicable on all levels: physical, emotional as well as spiritual.
Now, the Bible asserts that we (all humans) are spiritually dead (for the sake of this argument we exclude the infant and children). And if we are dead, we cannot feel spiritually hungry for God. The hunger for God is just not there! That hunger must be placed within us by a third party (namely God) so that we may begin to feel the need for him. Otherwise how is it possible to 'respond' from ourselves since we have no spiritual life?..
Now, one may say... life begins before we start being/feeling hungry, thus when we feel hungry we are already alive! This couldn't be more true! However, we must at this stage recognise that being alive even before we feel hungry is not evidence of a volitional exercise of the newly created life. Nobody has chosen to be born and never will (thank God!). So, by analogy, when we feel the need for God (or ...are able to respond to His call) we must have already been born spiritually. (When and how, it's not the point here) Otherwise, i cannot see how it is possible to 'respond' to God's call.
I am sorry if i am being complicated. i don't mean to cause trouble but rather help to undo it.
Thank you everyone for your patience.
Spiritual death does not mean that the spirit of man ceases to exist. It means that man has lost the grace of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit which is our true life.
Man has not lost anything which is proper to his humanity, and this includes the spiritual aspect of our being which remains alive and active. It is part of who we are as humans.
Since the spirit of man is not non-existent it remains drawn towards the light and life of God. You talk about 'the response we produce', but you seem to be trying to posit some sort of Protestant denial that we can do anything towards our salvation. Frankly such historic Protestantism is irrelevant to Orthodoxy. There is no need for Orthodoxy to define itself by Protestantism.
We have lost our connection to God in the Fall. We have lost the indwelling Holy Spirit. But the spirit of a man remains immortal and remains longing for that which it has lost, even though men often seek to silence that longing, or seek to fulfill it in sinful and selfish and animal passion.
Your suggestion that we must have been born spiritually to be able to respond to God is not a view that the Fathers, or Orthodoxy accepts. It is a Protestant view. The fact is that we have a spirit, but lack the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is the spirit of man which is not dead which responds to God. And in responding receives the grace of the indwelling Holy Spirit by baptism and chrismation which brings the spirit of a man to the experience of life in the Spirit. We become truly alive an dtruly human in being filled with the Holy Spirit, but we were not lacking any aspect of humanity before we were baptised and chrismated, just experiencing life separated from God.
So I would say that the problem with your position is that we do not believe that the spirit of man ceases to exist and be active. Nor do we believe that spiritual death is the inactivity or non-existence of the human spirit which is made in the image of God and responds to God, but it is the lack of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Therefore there is no issue with believing, as Orthodox do, that the spirit of man continues to respond to the call of the Spirit of God,. The grace of God is in the universal call which he makes to all men.
Father Peter
You pointed out that 'We have lost our connection to God in the Fall. We have lost the indwelling Holy Spirit.' and I have no probs in accepting this biblical truth.
You also assert that 'the spirit of a man remains immortal' and i believe this is equally true if it means 'in existence' or ''it continues to exist'.
My question is: how can this human spirit that continues to 'exist' in a state of separation from the Holy Spirit of God be still alive (or living), if we consider that it is only the Spirit of God that keeps man's spirit alive?
The Genesis narrative tells us a fundamental (please forgive for using the term) principle when God told Adam: when you eat of the fruit 'you will surely die'. God didn't tell Adam that his spirit will continue to exist. He told Adam that his spirit will continue to exist as 'dead', which i believe it to mean 'in a state of separation from His spirit'.
Now, it seems that we need not to negotiate any further in establishing the meaning of 'dead. it's pretty clear: separated from God's spirit. Therefore existent but void of the life that comes from the Spirit of God from whom it was separated. Genesis was written neither by Calvin nor by Orthodox Fathers. Both parties may have contributed to the shaping of the modern christendom but in this argument i am not interested to support or attack either. instead i would like to establish a biblical view as to what it means to be spiritually dead, and the 'collateral effects' of the spiritual death, particularly with regards to man's 'ability to respond' to God's call. Hence the debate.
So far, i understand you maintain that being separate from God or spiritually dead does not impair man's ability to respond to God's call. The problem i have is that the only support for this view so far, in this debate, is that it relies exclusively on the Teachings of the Fathers and on the Rejection of Protestantism. However, i would like to understand the biblical support of this view.
Please forgive me if i am too persistent. I am willing to indefinitely postpone the debate if i am so perceived.
Thank you.
I don't accept those presuppositions, or the presuppositions you make in your argument.
This is NOT what the Church and the Fathers teach.
I don't need to use Protestant methods and suppositions to prove the Orthodox understanding of these things. But I'll dig out the teachings of the Church on this in due course, and provide some primary sources. I'm just trying to finish an IT job.
Best wishes
Father Peter
Spiritual death does not mean that the spirit of man ceases to exist. It means that man has lost the grace of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit which is our true life.
Father Peter
Father Peter,
After rereading this thread tonight this comment by you truly resonated with me. You are correct when you say that spiritual death does not mean that the spirit of man ceases.
The Reformed (i.e. Calvinist/Lutheran) view of spiritual death is akin to a dead corpse - lifeless and unresponsive. However does spiritual death mean that? Because our souls are eternal (following our creation) we will never truly die. Our bodies will see death (temporarily) yet our soul continues to live. Does that mean that upon death our soul is extinguished in such a nihilist sense? Of course not! Our souls continue to exist in relation to the nearness of God. Those in heaven are living in the presence of our Lord. Those in hell are alive yet in the absence of the goodness (or closeness or beneficent relationship) of God.
Thus spiritual death is not akin to a dead body - as the Reformed doctrine proclaims. Rather spiritual death is the absence of the true goodness of God which is only found in a relationship with Him through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Is what I have said above close to the Orthodox understanding? If so, it makes a lot of sense Biblically - in a way that is so plain yet I had not even considered before.
Yes, I think that you appreciate the Orthodox view. It seems to me that everything must be judged and considered in relation to God, and the Kingdom. Therefore when we are speaking of 'true life' and 'true death' we are describing states of being in relation to God and not according to created nature.
We may well be alive in an animal sense, but if we do not know and are not known by God and if we have not been renewed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit so that we are restored to relationship with God then we know that we are not really alive, just existing as unhappy rational animals.
The Fathers teach us that all composite created beings are naturally mortal and liable to dissolution, but that at his creation Adam was gifted with the grace of the indwelling Spirit, who was his true Life. This true Life held at bay the natural mortality which belonged to his nature, and lifted Adam beyond nature into an experience of life with God. When he sinned his nature was not changed, but the Holy Spirit departed from him and he found himself mortal - AS WELL AS SUFFERING THE TRUE DEATH OF LIFE WITHOUT GOD. Our mortality is a constant reminder of the True Death we also experience.
But the Fathers also say that God granted that the soul of Adam should remain immortal, and always seeking after the relationship with God which had been lost. This seems to me to show that death is not so much our natural mortality but separation from God, since the soul is granted immortality even while suffering the living death of the absence of the life-giving relationship with God by the Holy Spirit.
It is interesting to reflect how the phrase 'life-giving' is used so much in Orthodoxy, and especially in relation to the sacraments and the Person of the Holy Spirit.
God bless
Father Peter
If it weren't for the gift of faith, people rightly deserve condemnation.
Dear brother, i don't understand what you are trying to imply here. Faith is not a gift. This is your choice whether to believe or not, it is not a gift. God's grace, mercy, and compassion is what His gift is to us, from what i understand is you are saying that you are saved only by faith. Correct me if that is not what you are saying because if this is what you are saying then it is completely rubbish. In the book of James chapter 2 it plainly says, "Faith without works equals zero (i am paraphrasing) and work without love is zero". This is protestant teaching that says faith gets you automatically saved.
PFM