BRUSSELS (ChurchMilitant.com) - Brussels is getting backlash from Poland for flying a gay flag outside of the European Parliament.
On Thursday, a rainbow flag was hoisted up in front of the building for the first time in its history, marking "International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia."
Despite outcry from Polish conservatives, the European Union said, "Regrettably, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons in Europe are still subject to serious discrimination and maltreatment on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity."
Ryszard Legutko, co-chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, said in a letter to the European Parliament that Thursday's initiative displayed "just one lobby group."
He questioned why the Parliament would not promote other unofficial "international days" like those celebrating museums, beer or students.
Since 1990, May 17 has been remembered as the anniversary of the removal of homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization.
But Legutko blasted the display of a rainbow flag, saying it endorses a "moral revolution" that privileges same-sex couples. There are "practically no ... attacks" on those with same-sex attraction, Legutko emphasized.
There are 'practically no ... attacks' on those with same-sex attraction.
This didn't stop the European Commission and European External Action Service, also in Brussels, from illuminating its headquarters with the colors of the gay flag.
Frans Timmermans, vice president of the European Commission, said, "It's time we put an end to the widespread discrimination against LGBTI people together."
However, Legutko instead recommended hoisting a flag with a fish a symbol of Christianity to symbolize the millions of Christians suffering persecution worldwide.
Poster Comment:
Many of us are sick and tired of politicians kissing the asses of queers! Resurrect the law that outlaws homosexual acts and proselytizing today's thoroughly confused youth. The belong hidden under a rock.
Widespread LGBTQI discrimination? Where? When? By whom? If it happens there must have been major stories in the press. But nothing.
Instead what I see are Christians being slaughtered and persecuted by the thousands over the last 20 years and not a word from the atheistic marxists in Brussels, London, Berlin, Paris.
In my opinion what's acquired is the predisposition to homosexuality -- as with the predisposition to pedophilia, alcoholism, drug use, smoking or being overweight, to name a few.
Doesn't mean you have to engage in that behavior, or that you're entitled to engage in that behavior, or that the rest of us have to accept that behavior as normal.
Doesn't mean you have to engage in that behavior, or that you're entitled to engage in that behavior, or that the rest of us have to accept that behavior as normal.
That is true. The only behavior we HAVE to engage in, involuntarily, is breathing and excreting.
So, the question is: what are you ENTITLED to engage in? I think we would both come down on the side of saying "What the law of our land lets us do."
So then it's purely a question of what that law should be (and who decides).
I think that the law should let people have whatever sex they please with other consenting adults, and I think the law should not give any recourse to those who dislike that. And that's actually what our law DOES, right now, so I am content with it.
The only question, then, is whether or not we have to ACCEPT legal behavior as "normal". You and I both don't think that homosexual activity is "normal". It's deviant. I shrug my shoulders at it because I just don't care what people do. You are horrified by it. I think it's important that you don't get to express your horror legally in any way, that you essentially have to passively accept something you really don't like, even if you don't think it's normal at all, because the law says it's legal.
In the same vein, I know that abortion is the intentional pre-meditated murder of an innocent unborn child. It horrifies me, and if I had the power, I would outlaw it and punish those who commit it. But the law is against me, so however abnormal I find the activity and the law, I just have to lump it. If it's important enough to me, I can emigrate to get away from that law, or I can persuade other people to agree with me and get an administration in there that will put five like-minded people on the Supremes.
In general, I find the liberalizing and relaxing of legal restraints on personal liberty to be a very good thing and I support it. I think we went too far with abortion, but everything else seems, on balance, positive to me. Including letting gays have whatever sex they want to have. I don't care. And I don't think that people who DO care, like you do, should have any say in it. So the law is permissive, and the politics have to be strong enough to stop you in your tracks. One of us is going to be unhappy. In general, moralistic, puritanical and racist types have had their politics beaten down and beaten back over the course of American history, and greater and greater liberty has emerged. I strongly support that trend, both of freeing people from puritanical laws, and of putting into place the political and legal structures to prevent your side from regaining momentum to ever be able to change any of the rules back.
Ergo, for example, in the case of race, not only did slavery and segregation need to be formally outlawed on paper, but we needed the FBI and internal intelligence and law enforcement apparatus of state to go in and smash the KKK and related organizations, to prosecute and persecute and beat them down sufficiently that people recognized that they would pay a heavy social, economic, political and economic price if they sided with the losing side of that fight. The past was racially oppressive. People did not change their minds easily. So once the racists were defeated in physical and legal battle, they needed to be forcibly oppressed by the government, persecuted, so that people would be afraid to join their ranks or mouth support for them, for fear of their own well being.
This was effective. The KKK was once a mighty organization that struck fear into many, both physical fear on the ground and also in the halls of power. But they were defeated and reduced, to the point that only a crazy person on the margins who was so filled with racial hatred that he would be willing to give up any prospects of a decent job or a normal life would join.
In some lands in history, masturbation was a mortal sin, and was punished violently through public whipping or worse. Unmarried heterosexual fornication and gay sex in private between consenting adults both fall into the category of masturbation: things that are nobody's business, that nobody should be able to punish. Since some people want to, and are unhappy if those things are allowed, those people have to be kept unhappy, by making damned sure they cannot wrest back control of the law to reimpose their views.
Unmarried heterosexual fornication and gay sex in private between consenting adults both fall into the category of masturbation
Not exactly. Into category of mutual masturbation falls female homosexuality and sometimes male homosexuality. Heterosexual fornication is not a masturbation.
Serious unnatural sin is anal sex, also among heterosexual couples, perhaps lighter in the later case.
At least so say canons of the Orthodox Church that deal with sins and penance.
Not exactly. Into category of mutual masturbation falls female homosexuality and sometimes male homosexuality. Heterosexual fornication is not a masturbation.
I did not mean the mechanics. I meant to say that these are all grave sexual sins, according to the dominant religions anyway.
Obviously the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church have different views of sex. Masturbation is, and always has been, a very grave sin - a mortal sin of sexual immorality - in the Catholic Church. The catechism confirms this. So, while I agree with you, based on the mildness of the Torah towards this sin, calling it a mere uncleanness, the Catholic Church holds masturbation to be porneia, a gravely disordered sin, and notes that the mental aspect involved constitutes lust in the heart and mind, which Jesus identified as adultery. So, our discussion has uncovered another enormous difference between the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches, and a very ancient one.
Perhaps harshness of Latin Church toward minor sexual transgressions is a result of mandatory celibacy that affected mindset of their clergy?
BTW, the church canons that I mentioned are from long before Schism, so perhaps Western attitudes were formed by the scholastic celibate scholars during Middle Ages?
I wonder how much hypocrisy was involved there and guilt tripping?
The Catholic Church says that its moral views on this date from the early church, from long before the Schism. So, this is an example of something on which the Church that was once united always disagreed, apparently, between East and West. In a similar vein, the Eastern Orthodox allow remarriage after divorce. I don't know if they always have, but they do now. The Catholic Church never did - to the point of losing England on account of it.
Yes, we DO say. And you fellows in Eastern Orthodoxy say that your way of doing things is the way it has always been. And in truth, documentary evidence of both positions existing simultaneously exists.
Which REALLY means that the Church was never actually united way back then, it was just so spread out and had such greater issues pressing that these differences that have always separated East and West did not come to the forefront for about a millennium.
When they did, and Europe was stable enough that Christians could fight about these differences that were always there, they did fight about them, and each claimed - truthfully - that THEIR way of doing was "original".
There hasn't been REAL Christian unity in belief or doctrine since the beginning. The Acts of the Apostles are full of the contentions of the Apostolic generation, and it never got better than that afterwards.
Neither the Catholic NOR the Orthodox Churches would ever want to admit THAT, so each goes on believing itself to be authentic and original, which is actually true, but each considers all other ways to have "fallwn away" from the original purity, which each asserts they alone represent. And that is patently false.
Those who are honest enough to admit that the evidence shows greater diversity than most would like, are quick to then change the discussion to questions of hiearchical authority.
From my perch, the failures of both churches on that score are howlingly self-evident.
Then the Protestants came along and blew things up.
Meanwhile the Oriental Orthodox could claim that BOTH the Catholics and the EO have lapsed into error and heresy, but if they did claim such a thing, nobody would listen or care, because, really, who are THOSE PEOPLE to have an opinion. Theological wisdom from Africa or India or the deep middle east? Please!
My own view: the Quakers have gotten it more right than anybody else, as far as actually listening to God goes.
the Church was never actually united way back then, it was just so spread out and had such greater issues pressing that these differences
She came to West from the East. All Seven Ecumenical Councils (that defined basic dogmas of Christian Faith like Holy Trinity) were conducted in the Greek speaking East and at none of them the Bishop of Rome was present at them.
The first Latin translation was done several generations after Apostles and called Vulgate (vulgar) ie for the uneducated people who did not know Greek.
Map below, also remember that the East was more densely populated at that time.
Germanic tribes that dominated Latin West were theologically crude and self-willed. They introduced Germanic notion of guilt that combined with Latin legalism did a lot of harm to the Western souls.
Germanic tribes that dominated Latin West were theologically crude, self-willed and arrogant. They introduced Germanic notion of guilt that combined with Latin legalism did a lot of harm to the Western souls.
Penal Substitution has its origin in Anselm of Canterbury. Anselm was a Roman Catholic archbishop during the 11th century. His seminal work, Cur Deus Homo, expressed for the first time in the history of the church the Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement. Anselm wrote that the problem Jesus came to solve was that mankind did not give God his due. Every time someone sinned, they incurred a divine debt, a debt in magnitude to the one to whom it was due. Because God is infinite, any sin against him requires an infinite payment. But man, being finite, has no way to pay. God does not forgive without payment, so man is without hope, lost until a savior should come. But God in his mercy sent his Son to make that payment for us. Only an infinite being could make an infinite payment, so he exacted that payment from himself. This is what Jesus accomplished at the cross.
Anselm was influenced in the development of this doctrine by many sources in his cultural context. Anselm lived within a medieval common law that had developed out of Germanic tribal law. The Germans assigned value to human life on the principle of weregild, the honor given by ones standing in the tribal community. The higher ones position, the higher the honor assigned. When a members honor was affronted, payment had to be made to restore that honor. In most circumstances, this payment was life. The exception to this rule was for slaves. If someone killed the slave of another, the offender had to make recompense by paying the value of the slave to the owner. Slaves had no value in and of themselves because of their low position, but did have value to their master. If someone killed or offended the honor of a freeman, life had to be paid for life. Honor was life, so any damage to anothers honor required your very existence as recompense. To offend a king, by extension of the value placed on his position, demanded the highest payment of all. Anselm extended this model to Gods relationship with man, saying that, because God is of infinite honor, any sin against him requires an infinite payment, without which God will not forgive.
Five hundred years after Anselm, John Calvin took his ideas a step further, saying that the debt owed to God by mankind was one of punishment. God had to punish sin because he was just. And when man sinned, he incurred Gods wrath toward himself, since God hates sin. The only way to appease this wrath is to make payment. Because God is infinite, the payment made must be infinite. Man, being finite, could not provide such a sacrifice, so God in Christ provided it himself.
Converts will bicker, but the cradle Catholics won't.
Yes, your RCIA cohorts over at the other site and Free Republic are quite zealous. But the cradle Catholics (I was one) are great to talk with and friendly.
And Aquila is in exact agreement with Symmachus. With regard first to the words which are apparently said in the Person of our Saviour: "Heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee," you will notice in Symmachus they are not so rendered, but thus: "Heal my soul, even if I have sinned against thee." And He speaks thus, since He shares our sins. So it is said: "And the Lord hath laid on him our iniquities, and he bears our sins." Thus the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, (467) became a curse on our behalf:
"Whom, though he knew no sin, God made sin for our sake, giving him as redemption for all, that we might become the righteousness of God in him."
[...]
But since being in the likeness of sinful flesh He condemned sin in the flesh, the words quoted are rightly used. And in that He made our sins His own from His love and benevolence towards us, He says these words, adding further on in the same Psalm: "Thou hast (b) protected me because of my innocence," clearly shewing the impeccability of the Lamb of God. And how can He make our sins His own, and be said to bear our iniquities, except by our being regarded as His body, according to the apostle, who says: "Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members?" And by the rule that "if one member suffer all the members suffer with it," so when the many members suffer and sin, He too by the laws of (c) sympathy (since the Word of God was pleased to take the form of a slave and to be knit into the common tabernacle of us all) takes into Himself the labours of the suffering members, and makes our sicknesses His, and suffers all our woes and labours by the laws of love. And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf, (d) and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse for us. And what is that but the price of our |196 souls?
And so the oracle says in our person: "By his stripes we were healed," and "The Lord delivered him for our sins," with the result that uniting Himself to us and us to Himself, and appropriating our sufferings, He can say, "I said, Lord, have mercy on me, heal my soul, (468) for I have sinned against thee," and can cry that they who plot against Him, not men only but invisible daemons as well, when they see the surpassing power of His Holy Name and title, by means of which He filled the world full of Christians a little after, think that they will be able to extinguish it, if they plot His death. This is what is proved by His saying: "My enemies have spoken evil of me, saying, When shall he die and his name perish?"
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstratio Evangelica, X.1
Chrysostom, Homily on Galatians 3:3 (ACD, vol. 3, p. 108)
The people were liable to punishment since they had not fulfilled the whole Law. Christ satisfied a different curse, the one that says, Cursed is everyone that is hanged on a tree.. Both the one who is hanged and the one who transgresses the Law are accursed. Christ, who was going to lift that curse, could not properly be made liable to it, yet he had to receive a curse. He received the curse instead of being liable to it, and through this he lifted the curse. Just as, when someone is condemned to death, another innocent person who chooses to die for him releases him from that punishment, so Christ also did.
In reality, the people were subject to another curse, which says, Cursed is every one that continues not in the things that are written in the book of the Law. Deuteronomy 27:26 To this curse, I say, people were subject, for no man had continued in, or was a keeper of, the whole Law; but Christ exchanged this curse for the other, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree. As then both he who hanged on a tree, and he who transgresses the Law, is cursed, and as it was necessary for him who is about to relieve from a curse himself to be free from it, but to receive another instead of it, therefore Christ took upon Him such another, and thereby relieved us from the curse. It was like an innocent man's undertaking to die for another sentenced to death, and so rescuing him from punishment. For Christ took upon Him not the curse of transgression, but the other curse, in order to remove that of others. For, He had done no violence neither was any deceit in His mouth. Isaiah 53:9;1 Peter 2:22 And as by dying He rescued from death those who were dying, so by taking upon Himself the curse, He delivered them from it.
This, the catholic faith has known of the one and only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who condescended to undergo deaththat is, the penalty of sinwithout sin, for us. As He alone became the Son of man, in order that we might become through Him sons of God, so He alone, on our behalf, undertook punishment without ill deservings, that we through Him might obtain grace without good deservings. Because as to us nothing good was due so to Him nothing bad was due. Therefore, commending His love to them to whom He was about to give undeserved life, He was willing to suffer for them an undeserved death. (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book 4, chap. 7)
CHURCH FATHERS: Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book IV (Augustine)
He blotted out through death the sentence of death, that by a new creation of our race in Himself He might sweep away the penalty appointed by the former Law. He let them nail Him to the cross that He might nail to the curse of the cross and abolish all the curses to which the world is condemned. He suffered as man to the utmost that He might put powers to shame. For Scripture had foretold that He Who is God should die; that the victory and triumph of them that trust in Him lay in the fact that He, Who is immortal and cannot be overcome by death, was to die that mortals might gain eternity.
CHURCH FATHERS: On the Trinity, Book I (Hilary of Poitiers)
If Phinees, when he waxed zealous and slew the evil-doer, staved the wrath of God, shall not Jesus, who slew not another, but gave up Himself for a ransom, put away the wrath which is against mankind? Further; if the lamb under Moses drove the destroyer far away, did not much rather the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, deliver us from our sins? The blood of a silly sheep gave salvation; and shall not the Blood of the Only-begotten much rather save? Jesus then really suffered for all men; for the Cross was no illusion, otherwise our redemption is an illusion also These things the Saviour endured, and made peace through the Blood of His Cross, for things in heaven, and things in earth. For we were enemies of God through sin, and God had appointed the sinner to die. There must needs therefore have happened one of two things; either that God, in His truth, should destroy all men, or that in His loving-kindness He should cancel the sentence. But behold the wisdom of God; He preserved both the truth of His sentence, and the exercise of His loving-kindness. Christ took our sins in His body on the tree, that we by His death might die to sin, and live unto righteousness.--St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, XIII
He blotted out through death the sentence of death, that by a new creation of our race in Himself He might sweep away the penalty appointed by the former Law. He let them nail Him to the cross that He might nail to the curse of the cross and abolish all the curses to which the world is condemned.
I will answer this passage for now.
This sentence and curse was executed after our Foreparents did not pay heed to the Divine warning. "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
Adam and Eve, deceived by jealous Satan, ate the fruit, lost their innocence and lost communion with God. By their fall they brought the misfortune and death upon the universe and themselves. God had to impose the burden of suffering and to expel the from Paradise, so they would not eat the fruit of immortality and did not remain for ever in company of Satan, what was Satan's objective.
The Second Adam, The Second Hipostasis of Godhead took upon Himself human nature, body and soul, to restore the original perfection yet taking the consequences of the original fall, including death to descend into Hades the land of dead freeing the souls of the reposed. This way he broke the curse and reopened way back to the Paradise.
Christ is Victorious Orpheus, who freed human soul from Hades where His mythical prefiguration failed.
From the Sermon of Saint John Chrysostom (400AD):
"Christ is risen from the dead, by death he hath overcome death, and to them in the graves hath he given life."
"Therefore let everyone enter into the joy of the Lord. The first and the last, receive your wages. Rich and poor, dance with each other. The temperate and the slothful, honour this day. Ye who have fasted and ye who have not, rejoice this day. The table is fully laden; all of you delight in it. The calf is plenteous, let no one depart hungry. Let everyone enjoy this banquet of faith. Let everyone take pleasure in the wealth of goodness. Let no one lament his poverty, for the universal kingdom has appeared. Let no one bewail for his transgressions, for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Saviours death has set us free.
He who was held by death, eradicated death. He plundered Hades when He descended into Hades. He embittered it, when it tasted of His flesh, and this being foretold by Isaiah when he cried: Hades said it was embittered, when it encountered Thee below. Embittered, for it was abolished. Embittered, for it was ridiculed. Embittered, for it was put to death. Embittered, for it was dethroned. Embittered, for it was made captive. It received a body and by chance came face to face with God. It received earth and encountered heaven. It received that which it could see, and was overthrown by Him whom he could not see. Where, O death, is your sting?
Where, O Hades is your victory? Christ is risen, and thou art cast down. Christ is risen, and the demons have fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life is liberated. Christ is risen, and no one remains dead in a tomb. For Christ having risen from the dead, has become the first-fruits of those that have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and power, for ever and ever."
"Christ is risen from the dead, by death he hath overcome death, and to them in the graves hath he given life." "Therefore let everyone enter into the joy of the Lord. The first and the last, receive your wages. Rich and poor, dance with each other. The temperate and the slothful, honour this day. Ye who have fasted and ye who have not, rejoice this day. The table is fully laden; all of you delight in it. The calf is plenteous, let no one depart hungry. Let everyone enjoy this banquet of faith. Let everyone take pleasure in the wealth of goodness. Let no one lament his poverty, for the universal kingdom has appeared. Let no one bewail for his transgressions, for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Saviours death has set us free. He who was held by death, eradicated death. He plundered Hades when He descended into Hades. He embittered it, when it tasted of His flesh, and this being foretold by Isaiah when he cried: Hades said it was embittered, when it encountered Thee below. Embittered, for it was abolished. Embittered, for it was ridiculed. Embittered, for it was put to death. Embittered, for it was dethroned. Embittered, for it was made captive. It received a body and by chance came face to face with God. It received earth and encountered heaven. It received that which it could see, and was overthrown by Him whom he could not see. Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O Hades is your victory? Christ is risen, and thou art cast down. Christ is risen, and the demons have fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life is liberated. Christ is risen, and no one remains dead in a tomb. For Christ having risen from the dead, has become the first-fruits of those that have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and power, for ever and ever."
A great Ransom quote from St John Chrysostom. The Eastern Orthodox view of atonement via Ransom is Biblical and historical as you point out. However, not the complete picture.
John Chrysostom (c. 350-407), Homilies on Second Corinthians Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. I, vol. 12 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, repr. 1969), Homily XI, sect. 6, p. 335.
If one that was himself a king, beholding a robber and malefactor under punishment, gave his well-beloved son, his only-begotten and true, to be slain;and transferred the death and the guilt as well, from him to his son (who was himself of no such character), that he might both save the condemned man and clear him from his evil reputation; and then if, having subsequently promoted him to great dignity, he had yet, after thus saving him and advancing him to that glory unspeakable, been outraged by the person that had received such treatment: would not that man, if he had any sense, have chosen ten thousand deaths rather than appear guilty of so great ingratitude? This then let us also now consider with ourselves, and groan bitterly for the provocations we have offered our Benefactor; nor let us therefore presume, because though outraged he bears it with long-suffering; but rather for this very reason be full of remorse. Homily XI, sect. 6
I think given the quotes (which were in context and links provided to entire works for examination of context) the early fathers understood what we call Substitution and Penal Substitution atonement. They never used those theological terms but clearly understood it from Holy Scriptures as they taught such. That was my point in posting the quotes. Not to argue Christus Victor nor Ransom theories. I'm arguing "all of the above."
From Athanasius:
IX-For the Word, perceiving that no otherwise could the corruption of men be undone save by death as a necessary condition, while it was impossible for the Word to suffer death, being immortal, and Son of the Father; to this end He takes to Himself a body capable of death, that it, by partaking of the Word Who is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of all, and might, because of the Word which had come to dwell in it, remain incorruptible, and that thenceforth corruption might be stayed from all by the Grace of the Resurrection. Whence, by offering unto death the body He Himself had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from any stain, straightway He put away death from all His peers by the offering of an equivalent.
2. For being over all, the Word of God naturally by offering His own temple and corporeal instrument for the life of all satisfied the debt by His death. And thus He, the incorruptible Son of God, being conjoined with all by a like nature, naturally clothed all with incorruption, by the promise of the resurrection. For the actual corruption in death has no longer holding- ground against men, by reason of the Word, which by His one body has come to dwell among them.
3. And like as when a great king has entered into some large city and taken up his abode in one of the houses there, such city is at all events held worthy of high honour, nor does any enemy or bandit any longer descend upon it and subject it; but, on the contrary, it is thought entitled to all care, because of the king's having taken up his residence in a single house there: so, too, has it been with the Monarch of all.
4. For now that He has come to our realm, and taken up his abode in one body among His peers, henceforth the whole conspiracy of the enemy against mankind is checked, and the corruption of death which before was prevailing against them is done away. For the race of men had gone to ruin, had not the Lord and Saviour of all, the Son of God, come among us to meet the end of death.
If I had to take penal Substitution as Christian teaching, I would not find Christ and His loving kindness there. I would not be a Christian.
I demonstrated quite a few early fathers taught both Substitution and Penal Substitution.
It's the complete Biblical view and the ECFs I quoted show this. Admitting what is obvious does not subtract from Christ's loving kindness. It actually makes one more reverent of the gift of God's Grace.
Admitting what is obvious does not subtract from Christ's loving kindness. It actually makes one more reverent of the gift of God's Grace.
What about loving kindness of God the Father Almighty? He is not able to show it otherwise than torturing His own Son to pay the debt? (Even in Germanic religion the spear of laws guarded by Odin could be broken.)
Were countless Jews, Greeks and Romans enthusiastically willing to dedicate their lives to persecution and suffering (St. Peter also was crucified and many others), because their good hearts were moved by such image?
What about loving kindness of God the Father Almighty? He is not able to show it otherwise than torturing His own Son to pay the debt? (Even in Germanic religion the spear of laws guarded by Odin could be broken.)
Were countless Jews, Greeks and Romans enthusiastically willing to dedicate their lives to persecution and suffering (St. Peter also was crucified and many others), because their good hearts were moved by such image?
This above is post modern atheistic "optics."
With regards to Isaiah 53 and the Suffering Servant, Isaih 55:8 must be taken into consideration.
This above is post modern atheistic "optics." Show it.
No problem. The atheistic rant is God is a big "meanie." To soften the Holy God of the Bible and His wrath against sin, some Christians are trying to 'soften' the image of God to appease a post-modern sensitive society.
You quote:
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, Complete non sequitur.
Absolutely not. It is a fact. When we try to encapsulate God in man's understanding according to man's ways error will occur.
As I mentioned the Ransom theory is solid. It is just incomplete. I quoted the fathers who quoted and commented on the pertinent Holy Scriptures. They teach Jesus satisfied the Father's wrath by suffering and dying for us.
BTW Anselm and Calvin thoughts are all too human, taken from Germanic tribal law, payment of wergild. Anselm was more about satisfying honor than satisfying the wrath of God against law breakers.
Isaiah 53: NASB
1Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
3He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
6All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
7He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.
8By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
9His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
10But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
11As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.
12Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.
I think it is all too clear why the early fathers I quoted taught what they did. That Jesus Christ satisfied the wrath of God against sin.
Colossians 2: NASB
8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
To soften the Holy God of the Bible and His wrath against sin,
It is not God's wrath, it is YOURS wrath that you ascribe to him.
some Christians are trying to 'soften' the image of God to appease a post-modern sensitive society.
Well, yes. Post-modern sensitive society does not like anymore burning people alive, so they stopped to believe your presentation of Divine bloodthirstiness. It was appealing to the many, centuries ago, you should be sent back in time 1000 years, or 3000 would be even better.
It is not God's wrath, it is YOURS wrath that you ascribe to him.
That's cute.
Well, yes. Post-modern sensitive society does not like anymore burning people alive, so they stopped to believe your presentation of Divine bloodthirstiness. It was appealing to the many, centuries ago, you should be sent back in time 1000 years, or 3000 would be even better.
When did Orthodoxy embrace Universalism or Annihilationism?
The anathemas of the local Council of Constantinople in 453, which is understood by most commentators to be confirmed by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553, posthumously excommunicated Origen and anyone following specific points of his teachings. These anathemas condemned his protology of pre-existent souls and his eschatology of universal restoration of all things "which follows from" his protology.
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Apocatastasis
There will not be Apocatastasis. But it does not mean that all could not be saved if they wanted, but they will not as they have free will. Satan did not have to turn away from God, but he did.