God's wrath and God's love

The Fathers are not alien to the idea of God's anger at sin, both the renovationsts and the

more classical agree that God's anger is not the passion driven unstable etc. stuff we are used to. However anthropomorphic you want to deride it as, and God's love also, don't forget that,

it is solidly present in the Bible and that includes the Psalms we use.

 

OFten human anger is based in part on liking being angry or on varioius issues that don't have

to do with love. There is plenty of reason for God to have some anger at the intransigently

hostile to Him type humans. There is nothing evil about that.

 

God's love must be eliminated then with God's anger for both are anthropomorphisms. This

very term anthropomorphism reeks of the more educated type of paganism that rebelled

against the lowlife passionate "gods" of Greece and Rome, and their Renaissance humanist

heirs who laid the groundwork for later bad developments in theology east and west.

 

so you want to go that far?

 

when you love something you are angry at what tries to harm it. God is wrongly styled as

wrathful in the OT loving in the NT but while He shows His wrath at times, He spent a lot

space in the prophets begging people to repent and offering forgiveness. The NT fulfills

prophecies in the OT.

 

Granted His emotions for lack of a better word are not identical to human emotions but

at the same time, we being made in His image and likeness can't reject anthropomorphisms

outright for the very reason that we ARE made in His image and likeness however warped

that has become.

 

Its not a question of a God eagerly looking to torment people. indeed, Jesus says Sodom

will have it better in the Judgement because they WOULD have repented if given the signs

and wonders Christ did in some other cities who did not repent, and those will have it worse.

 

a God Who cuts you slack because of the good you would have done if given the chance the repentance you would have done if given the chance, is not a sadist. that doesn't mean they

will have blessedness, just not such bad punishment. the warning that the hypocrites who

devour the money of widows and orphans and for pretense make long prayers will have the

greater damnation shows there is a lesser damnation.

good reasons to oppose women in the priesthood

"First and foremost, I want to reiterate that I am opposed to

ordination of women, but not for any of the usual reasons."

http://politicallyunclassifiable.blogspot.com/2013/05/council-of-laodicea-proves-women-were.html

http://politicallyunclassifiable.blogspot.com/2015/06/women-clergy-bad-idea-even-if-biblical.html

advice from St. Anthony the Great

"If you consider riches and their full enjoyment to be merely a short-lived illusory vanity, if you know that a virtuous life pleasing to God is better than riches, you will hold fast to this conviction and keep it in memory; then you will not sigh, complain or reproach anyone, but will thank God for everything, when you see that men worse than you are praised for eloquence or erudition and wealth. Insatiable desire of riches and pleasures, love of fame and vainglory, coupled with ignorance of truth, are the worst passions of the soul."
   St. Anthony the Great, Philokalia.
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"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."  Galatians 6:9

hiding sin and "covering your father's nakedness" - misapplication of Scripture

I have run into the idea, in an Orthodox context, of the propriety of suppressing
information about major horrific sins of clerics as being as case of "covering your
father's nakedness," as per Shem and Japheth going backwards into Noah's tent
with a blanket, and covering him up, after Ham had come laughing about him
drunk unconscious and naked in the tent, telling shem and Japheth.

but wait a minute.

this idea equates the shame of nakedness with that of sin, and also draws on the
presumed sin of drunkenness by Noah. (maybe he wasn't used to wine after
years without it, didn't have the same tolerance. or maybe he got drunk not as
a chronic thing but a temporary measure to forget all he'd been through and maybe
the wine was very good tasting and he drank more than he intended to in a short
time.)

but DID SHEM AND JAPHETH COVER THE NAKEDNESS OF THEIR
BROTHER HAM'S SIN, AND NOT TELL HOW HE HAD MOCKED NOAH?

NO THEY DID NOT.

They told Noah and Noah DID NOT REBUKE THEM FOR "SNITCHING"
BUT BLESSED THEM AND CURSED CANAAN, HAM'S SON.

(why Noah cursed Canaan instead of Ham: one expositor noted God had
already blessed Noah and ALL his sons, so Noah couldn't curse Ham, on this
basis, Canaan was probably picked because he was of the same mentality as
Ham, and maybe encourage him. Another theory is that Canaan stole Noah's
clothes. maybe did something worse.)

Exposing evil is COMMANDED in Ephesians 5:11.

The idea of the church as family and priests and bishops as your father, well,
there is such a thing as disowning a family member who is very very evil.

The Two Trees: Literal or Figurative?

A lot is written in and outside of Orthodoxy, which treat the tree of life and the tree
of knowledge of good and evil as merely metaphors. Though to some extent this is
useful in classifying one's tendencies and avoiding the result of eating the second tree,
this kind of thing is the result of first of all Clement of Alexandria and then even worse
Origen, who were too influenced by pagan philosophy and speculation and gnostic
dislike of the physical. Origen was popular with some of the Patristic writers, but
after his and their deaths was condemned. It wasn't just pre existence of souls or
apokatastasis it was a laundry list. Condemned also was Evagrius Ponticus, of great
influence on monasticism (who did a kind of systems analysis of sin and virtue which
is useful, but wrote a book that got him in trouble later). The general attitude of
preferring allegory to concreteness is a problem. Paul used this approach only once,
it is not useless but subsequent writers went whole hog on this.

Modern Orthodoxy shies away from original sin, usually limiting this to us sharing
in Adam's guilt for his personal sin, but sometimes going so far as to deny an inherent
warp in us inherited from him and idiot Romanides saw sin as the result of fear of
death when only some sins come from this, and in general it is the other way around.

The Sin of Adam by Symeon the New Theologian has none of this nonsense which
resembles liberal protestant and "enlightenment" thought more than historic Orthodoxy.

Sure, we do sort of act as accessories after the fact once our sin nature manifests as
personal sins. The problem is the sin nature, as some call it, inherited from Adam.
Some manifest it more than others, all in different ways.

If Adam and Eve were inherently immortal what was that tree of life for? They were
kicked out of the garden and a cherubim with a flaming sword placed to keep them
from getting at it, lest they eat and live forever. One could argue that they would age
but not die and the tree of life would renew them. Once under the curse of death to
come on in the day they ate it (one day is as a thousand years and vice versa in God's
sight, and no one lived a full thousand years after that), the aging would result in
death, and the tree of life would prevent this.

Having eaten the fruit, like any food it became a part of them. part of their souls and
spirits. Traducianism rejected officially by Roman Catholicism was never rejected by
Orthodoxy, merely forgotten under western influence. St. Paul takes it for granted
in Hebrews when he explains how Levi paid tithes to Melchizedec when Abraham
did so because still in Abraham's loins, ergo the levitical priesthood is inferior to
the Melchizedec priesthood (of Jesus).

This would have soul material as well as physical material inherited from the parents.
Makes sense. It also is the only coherent explanation for the inheritance of a warped
nature.