www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West "God in a Box"

There are two ways to place God in a box.

One way is to create a doctrine that is too tight. This way is intentional by design.

The other way, depends upon the reader himself. Those who want God in a box can and will interpreter anything much too tightly and literally while denying what anyone else might see in the statement. While others will see the same words and statements and yet remain somewhat flexible.

Howevr ... I think we have to pay attention to Richards words "placing God in a box" which implies intentionality. The intention ... to place God into a box. This is more than simply making statements about God - this has the intention to restrict God to tightly the limits of the box.

>I believe that the above statements fail to make some
>important distinctions

I think that Deacon Richard did say what he wanted to say. I don't think he failed at all. But it is that you want to say something also. But I am not clear as to what it is. Can you state what you want to say without using Deacon Richard? I think I can understand it better if you just lay it out.

just asking.

Peace to your church.
-ray

Dear Stephanos I ... it looks like you were reply to me (maybe) but I am not sure.

-ray

It seems to me that we are only follow the example of our church hierachy - who have themselves emphasized this aspect.

The days of real interior spiritual growth are long gone. When was the last time any church did substantial teaching on how to cooperate with daily Providence? the stages of prayer and what are the signs that someone should move to the next stage?

All the Doctor's of the church are silent.

Personal holiness and the mystical life ... has been replaced with cultural Christianity. As Stephanos I said (but he did not mean it the way I will use it) we have become a counter-culture. The emphasis is on membership and correct doctrine.

The church does not save souls anymore .. it builds church membership.

My personal feeling is that we (I) have got to make a difference between the messenger ...and the message. The message is the gospel of Jesus Christ but the messenger is church authority. The messenger is not required to be holy .. he just has to deliver the message. I have stopped assuming that the messengers have a wonderful degree of personal holiness just because they are in charge.

I was reading a very old book today that I found. It was written about the later period of the Reformation. I admit .. it was not in favor of the Latin Church .. but it was still interesting because if one reads between the lines ... as to why the book was written ... it was written as a refutation to legal claims made by Rome .. that the 'Privilege of Peter' (apprently it was called this before it was called 'Primacy of Peter') the Privilege of Peter was legal grounds that the Roman Pontiff actually had all legal rights and ownership over all Patriarchates - world wide. The Pope of Rome had legal rights to all church real estate - world wide - and it was encumbant upon Kings to enforce that right. If that legal right had been granted ... Rome would own the property and physical churches that Eastern Orthodox worship in. Boy! that would have been a coupe de-grass!

My dog has been acting crazy tonight. She keeps going to the door and wanting out.. we let her out and she goes out and immediately comes back in. Constant pacing between rooms and into the kitchen (back door is there). We must have let her out 15 times in the last hour. I was wondering if she was getting sick or if the toy she had in her mouth contained lead. This last time .. I went out with her stood in the dark and cold sleet falling .. and I could hear a neighbor's dog crying (that pitiful yelping). It seemed to me that this guy had left his dog out in the freezing wet! I gave the house eye daggers and did a small prayer (wondering if I should call the police about animal cruelty) when the guy's back door opens ... and held .. and apparently he finally let the dog in. Surely he could hear the dog crying! But we could not her the dog from inside our house .. but my dog heard it and that was what was driving her crazy. She has stopped her pacing now but she is till needing to be told (pat-pat) everything is OK now.

Peace of conscience to us all.
-ray

Ray,



My only goal here was to make Deacon Richard's answer (which I agreed with for the most part) better by offering a correcting of a few categorical mistakes. I'm afraid I'm feeling too lazy right now to grant your request. I want to do a little more reading and thinking before attempting to articulate or defend my present assessment of certain theologies any further...

Pure truth, can I quote you on my wordpress?

If the message were just the gospel of Jesus Christ, then we might as well be protestants. The Liturgy of the Word is the lesser part of our Liturgy, and I think all Christians, of every church, share this with us. I don't have the new liturgy book (from the Archeparchy in Pgh) in front of me, and I don't recall if the old terminology was kept, but in my original "My Prayer Book, Divine Services, Prayers and Hymns for the American Catholics of the Greek (Slavonic) Rite (1962, Braddock PA)," the "Little Entrance" pertained to the procession with the Gospel. The second, more important part, is the Liturgy of the Faithful, with the "Great Entrance" procession of the bread and wine that will become the Eucharist. In fact, although I NEVER recall hearing this prayer in church (you'll see where it was shortened), the Liturgy of the Faithful was started with the Priest saying, "All catechumens depart, catechumens depart. All catechumens depart; let none of the catechumens be present; all ye faithful, again and again in peace let us pray to the Lord." (I don't have a character set loaded for the Slavonic, so I won't try to type the transliteration from the book.) It was, at one time, considered so much more important that the instructions now commonly found in prayer books about who can receive communion weren't there: Why have instructions for people you've kicked out before you reached this point?

As for differentiating between the messenger and the message; I agree to some extent: The Clergy are as human as the rest of us, there's no question of that! However, since I am Catholic, the Liturgy of the Word, which frankly can be read on your own, without clergy, isn't the most important part of the message: The Eucharist is and transubstantiation isn't something I can accomplish on my own; thus I need the clergy and the church . . . I can't separate the message from the messenger so easily.

Anyway, I'm not trying to start a fight, and I hope I haven't offended.

Dave

Ray,

We can saw wood and hammer nails, but to steal a title, our arms are too short to box with God. Any attempt to put God in a box will fail. Is that not the lesson of Good Friday?

However, we do succeed very well at putting ourselves into boxes. And we paste labels on them. Denominational. Ecumenical. Philosophical. Political. Orthodox. Catholic. Liberal. Conservative. Traditionalist.

I agree with some things you wrote, but I see a bleakness in your point of view that I don't share.

Most people don't seek real growth, content to live in their own personal box. Those who hear - and also listen, those who look - and also see, they do grow. It is often not seen, because it is intensely personal, and most don't make a show of it.

This we don't know. Who in her lifetime would have expected Therese of Liseaux to become a Doctor of the Church?

There are many within living memory whose contributions will not be fully appreciated for many years. Theresa of Calcutta; Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (recognized for her intercession in the healing of a Melkite Priest's daughter); Charles Joseph of Wadowice and Krakow (aka Pope John Paul II); Archbishop Fulton Sheen; Cardinal van Thuan, confessor of Vietnam; our own Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky.




Once again, this is matter of those who are comfy in their box and like to file other people in boxes; versus those who hear and listen and try and work. One cannot often see it, because it is personal, not for show. It it is too visible, it becomes suspect, a "look at me" thing.



The souls of those who have been saved would differ. The Church is a great mystery. The work is quiet and mostly not appreciated, but I have no doubt that the pyrohy ladies save souls by their cooking.


The next part I agree with, I don't expect to find holiness.


We are all unworthy sinners. Priests are sinners in uniform. Bishops (and Knights of Columbus) are sinners in uniform with funny hats.

I don't expect to find holiness, but I do find it. Not because people are in charge, but because they they listen to what they hear and see what they look at. Perhaps they see more than they even think they see, more than you see in the mirror.

And they say something that gets one to think of something else, or gets someone to do something else, outside of their personal box.


If the following were followed ...



If this rule were to be respected, maybe we would have an answer to the "wicked witches of the east" and their broomstick fight at the Church of the Nativity.



Those who hear - and also listen ... sometimes guide those who see - and then look - and then see some more. ...


... and perhaps the hearing and listening and looking and seeing causes the Holy Spirit to move the man next door to hear and to look and to see and to rescue the poor dog from the cold, wet night. A hopeful ending.


May the Lord grant you all many Blessings in the New Year.

Sadly I have to agree with Ray. Not that siding with Ray is a bad thing! hehe Just that his words are sad.

I know that there are people out there...somewhere...who seek and find God in profoundly meaningful ways. However, they are few and far between and blessed is the man who knows one. This is not to say that everyone else is on the road to perdition. It IS to say however, that the vast majority of believers have no clue what the Faith is about. Most believe it is simply about believing the creed and/or other doctrinal matters and sharing in the sacramental life of the Church. Perhaps self giving and ascetic lifestyle.

Yet Jesus said "I have come to give you life, and that abundantly." And "out of his belly will flow RIVERS of living water." And St Paul spoke of the Joy that transcends all human understanding.

Who here understands what these things mean? I mean understand existentially...not with your brain...intellectually. Which of us can say that we have that joy of which St Paul speaks? Or that we have a certain sharing in that abundant life of which our Savior spoke?

I certainly don't. I doubt very many here do either. And I am pretty sure the majority of other believers, including clergy just dont get it. They all, in their hearts, know these things are promised...but chalk up not having them to "the way life is" or some other such nonsense.

There are oodles of books on spirituality that flood our religious bookstores. But how many of those who wrote the books understand from experience what they are talking about? Religion is the one thing on earth that you absolutely cannot say one meaningful word about unless you've experienced the truth of it. Citing Fathers and mystics and others does no one any good if it is not comprehended through experience.

For that matter, most of these modern books were written by people, imo, who hoped to enrich their own spiritual lives by experimenting on others.

The new-old complaint "I'm not being fed" can often mean, I'm not getting anything emotionally out of this. But it can just as well mean what it says...little of spiritual substance is being provided by the Church.

I think Ray is right. The Church as a whole is suffering from lack of significant spiritual experience.

Jason

???



Uhm, yesterday: at my parish, during Divine Liturgy. And at millions of parishes (Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox) during their Sunday worship.




But what about Dr. Eric ?





Ray, my friend, and with all due respect, I couldn't disagree with you more. Jesus Christ is saving billions of people, and He is doing so through His Church. Hundreds of millions of people are actively co-operating with His message of grace and the Gospel; hundreds of millions are receiving the Sacraments / the Mysteries; thousands upon thousands of clergy and parents and spouses are faithfully laboring every day to pastor the souls whom Jesus has assigned to them; monks and nuns are doing their thing, asceticism and prayer, for themselves and for we who are still in the world; etc., etc., etc. The Church has plenty of problems, including too much arrogance at times, which is what I was referring to in my earlier post on this thread. But, overwhelmingly, we have the Jesus Christ and His Mysteries; and He is saving us, through those who respond to Him and directly, now and forever.

-- John

Yes.
I gave in to a moment of pessimism.
Thank you for banging me on the head and back to reality.

Peace to all of good conscience.
-ray

I am silent on this topic anyway. This is above my head.

If after I'm dead, you guys want to petition the Vatican to have me declared a Doctor of the Church, I won't stop you.

Time for me to jump in again because we have gone off topic. As the person who raised the issue for the first time,to redirect the issue. For the sake of argument, assume you are a visitor from a place far away (perhaps on earth and perhaps not)and a not Christian (i.e., drop your pro-Christian bias) and answer the question. Or to put it another way, react to the following comment of John (putting the stress on the last sentence of his comments):

"I don't think Christians are a very tolerant people. I think they can be a forgiving people, because they themselves have been forgiven, but they are not often tolerant.

Instead, I think Christians often can be judgmental, arrogant, fanatical and triumphalist. Christians often assume that they alone truly or fully or only know God. And they often think that not just about the religion in general but especially their own sect in particular.

I also think you are quite correct in your statement that Christians often cannot tolerate anything that appears to them to be error or immorality or injustice. History has plenty of examples of persecutions of Christians and others by Christians.

Of course, Christians have also done much good.

But, sadly, much of the evil that Christians have done in the name of God and their religion has been (in my opinion) because Christians have tried to put God in a box: their box, of course."

The entire statement is so broad as to be meaningless. Replace "Christian" with any other faith, or even "human," and it's just as true.

Dave

Well, I don't think it's meaningless. The context of this thread of conversation is Christianity. The issue is whether Christians try to put "God in a box."

I say yes, sadly, and often. Christians place a tremendous amount of emphasis on understanding the beliefs of their religion "correctly." As a result, in my opinion, we sometimes get carried away in trying to define that which is ultimately ineffable and inconceivable. And sometimes, that has brought about very unpleasant (and unChristian) side effects.

That just my %.02; back to lunch with me . . .

-- John

ahh, but the bishops don't have feathers on theirs

sir dochawk