Hi! So I’ll be sharing my experience and my view of the Eastern Orthodox church since I am from Bulgaria and orthodox beliefs are what I am most familiar with,
--Awesome, such a cool the the internet allows us to do. Greetings from a Christ follower from America!
but please don’t judge the orthodox faith by my opinions.
Just to mention that we don’t base ourselves only on the Bible but also on the experiences and writings of the holy fathers and the saints.
--Same with Christianity and anything that's my opinion. We just stick to the canonical Bible.
Sin in our church is seen as drifting away from God. When you sin, you basically distance yourself from Him. I really like one interpretation from father Haralampos Papadopoulos, that in my experience is very true, which is that sin is missing the goal, like being lost or confused, making mistakes, etc. And the other side of sin is where you blatantly do evil things and have no remorse.
--thats an interesting and personal way to look at it. I like that. The way we tend to talk about it is more so in a context of the relationship between God or neighbor that was broken. It's a deep topic. I think we're both speaking in the same language but using different words haha.
Jesus is the Son of the living God. Not created but born from Him.
-- I would contest born from Him. I would say the Father, Son, Spirit have existed together, in harmony, as unique persons forever. None created or born.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John 1:1-3 ESV
So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
John 8:57-58 ESV
God said to Moses, “I am who I am .” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
Exodus 3:14 ESV
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians 1:17 ESV
I believe these all support a common point, as I expressed above.
The role of good works? You do good if you wish to do good. Doing good just because you have to won’t benefit you in any way if it isn’t done out of love. And if you do good out of love, you won’t care about what benefits you get.
-- That's awesome. And refreshing to not hear of these referred to as some requirement or some means to achieve status. I heard this the other day. I like it. An outpuring of agape love.
What is the role of baptism? We call it christening. It’s a sacrament in which the Holy Spirit comes and cleanses you of the original sin if you’re a child, if you’re older, it also cleanses you of your own sins; you gain access to all the other sacraments and if you aren’t christened, you can’t go to Heaven.
-- this is where we differ a lot. We believe baptism to be optional. An outward expression of faith.
If I may explore a few questions to better understand?
If Jesus had original sin, how did he die sinless? If it's the baptism, what if someone is baptized then immediately murdered before they can sin again. How would that be different from Jesus death? And please understand, im not like asking rhetorical questions like im just right. Im legitimately eager to better understand your position. Ive thought about this and have some questions ive thought of but not deeply investigated.
Another thought.
One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Luke 23:39-43 ESV
It's not explicit, but it doesn't seem he would have been baptized. How then would he have joined Christ? If that's too assumptive (I think it may be) would that also imply then that all death bed conversions don't matter unless you were luckily baptized at some point in life? Wouldn't this also exclude anyone who's never heard of baptism?
Finally, im curious how you square the effort/act/work of baptism with verses like
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
John 5:24 ESV
I don't necessarily expect you to have all these answers. Just an informal dump of some of the questions that come to mind.
What is meant by believe in Jesus and you will be saved? None of us believe that we’ll be saved just because we believe in Jesus. You work for you salvation. Which doesn’t mean that we think we are saved by our works but by God’s grace.
-- Doesn't that statement directly contrast ephesians above? Again so you don't have to scroll around:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV
What’s your take on the language of Father and Son for God and Jesus? I don’t think I understand the question. Do you mean that God is a masculine figure? That we call Him a He?
-- Yeah. I would say it's 100% metaphor because the Father isn't confined to a physical body to start. God didn't create or bear Jesus. We can't truly understand three persons in one, so metaphor is to a sense required.
God wouldn't have a gender. He's above that definition. I mean, literally the definition makes no sense given God exists outside of our Universe.
Male - person bearing an X and Y chromosome pair in the cell nuclei and normally having a penis, scrotum, and testicles, and developing hair on the face at adolescence; a boy or man.
What's more that would imply a literal aesthetic definiton to created in God's image for humans. That's not the case.
Really looking forward to continuing our conversation!
As I tried to explain. I'm trying something a little different. There isn't an option for this so I'm just trying to be clear in the description. I'm not at all forcing anyone. I've gotten really good engagement from multiple people and they've understood why I did it this way after we got going.
If you're very strict on the debate style then please, just hang out and watch if interested in the topic. I also should say that if we fail to come to a good understanding of terms or to pull a truly concise conflict statement out, I take the full burden due to this set up and will concede the debate. If you're someone who thinks this is a cheap win for you then just hang out and watch if interested. The only way I feel I deserve to have a vote for my position is if, at the end, the opposing side feels they understand this weird set up, we indeed pull a point out that my title refers to, I've shown that to be in error, and (importantly) basically says yeah I get it, I concede. Otherwise by all means please take the win. The burden falls to me and my setup.
Since I am getting engagement, and very good conversations too I might add, I don't really want to abandon this. Just refine my description for clarity.
You bear the BoP so I don't think just asking questions is a good idea. You are supposed to defend your idea.
Yeah. I need to do a better job in the description but i see it this way.
If, as has happened in a few of these, we quickly engage on a specific topic, id suppose the voting would go in favor of who best debated from that point on.
It's a little different starting with a vague premise then using the first round or two to set terms.
If someone is very in the model of the truest sense of debate in terms of argument flow and final weighing of points discussed, then probably not the debate to take.
For those that tend to end up more so having a discussion which often times ends up more vague at the end anyway. As a ton that I ive engaged in do. Then my hope is this weird start can actually help focus the further rounds.
Otherwise I've noticed we try to cover half of Christian theology, very deeply, all at the same time and only in a few rounds. Not really that do-able if the topic has any depth. Most do.
I'll work to refine my description. I've offended and set off more than one person without intention. But I don't want to stop this avenue of discussion all together as I've gotten into some really, really solid focused discussions this way.
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/r0d7b/the_definition_of_atheism_and_christianity/
This is a kind of truism. Yes, the contender's definition of Christianity MAY be wrong biblically. There is always a chance.