Fr. Nicholas Newman “Often Christians of the present daydiscuss the ‘problem of evil.’ Why does a good, loving, and all-powerful God allow evil in the world? Perhaps this question itself is misguided or based on a false premise. Not only does it presume humanity is the innocent victim of evil, but also that evil is an external force from which, it is imagined, God is failing to protect us. The reality is precicely the reverse – evil enters creation as a result of humanity’s collusion with evil spiritual forces. Humanity is the vehicle through which evil comes into the world, anmd it is most often directly inflicted by humans upon one another rather than by impersonal forces of nature. God’s merciful and gracious action is why this evil does not consume the creation entirely.” In this way, Fr. Stephen DeYoung, in his book God is a Man of War: The Problem of Violence in the Old Testament, discusses the question that underlies the nest set of questions posed in the article by Krystal Smith. In the first set, Christians were asked about how one can know that God exists. In the second set of questions Christians are posed with what is, perhaps, the most common, but one of the most difficult, question about God. That is, if there exists a God, who is loving and good, how can suffering and evil exist in the world? These questions are: These three questions are certainly related, but they address the question of evil and suffering from slightly different angles, so it seems like it would be wise to go through each one separately. Particularly in Indo-European pagan religions, a human’s life is governed by a group of goddesses, the Graeae in Greek myth, the Norns of Norse myth, etc… These goddesses would measure out the length of the lives of humans, as well as what is to occur in their lives. There is no room in this understanding for separate human agency. This is the classic understanding of “fate.” On the other hand, the Epicurean philosophers, reject the idea of gods who involve themselves in human affairs at all, a similar outlook to the theistic philosophies that became prominent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While the Orthodox would certainly reject the first position, that we as human beings have no agency, and therefore, ultimately no will. The second position, that God withdraws Himself from human affairs entirely, and is not involved in human affairs, we would also reject. To understand how the Orthodox understand the concept of “fate,” one must understand how the Orthodox view the interplay of divine and human will, particularly in the context of Salvation. The Orthodox view Salvation not as a prize, won through faith or works, that is solely through the free-will of the human being, or imposed upon certain chosen by God, by “fate.” Salvation is union with God Himself, it is theosis, “becoming like God by Grace.” God offers us Salvation, but we must accept it, it is in working together with God, in concert with God, in synergia, that Salvation is attained. After the fall, we were not able to be in concert with God, it was in the Incarnation that our nature was renewed, that we were able to once again have the “likeness” of God, as well as the “image,” as it says in Genesis. So, God does the majority, it was God who created us, God who became in Incarnate, God who died on the Cross, God who renewed us, God who gives us Grace, but it is we who must accept this grace, we who must do our part, otherwise we cannot partake in the Divine Nature. Hieromonk Gregorios, in his book The Orthodox Faith, Worship, and Life discusses how this synergia applies to the question of free-will and vs. Fate: “The creation of man is the fruit of God’s love and the purpose of his creation was for him to become a partaker of divine riches…Man was created by God so that he may participate in His good things” (pg. 32). Humanity’s free-will has a certain limit, humans cannot will themselves into existence. Rather, it is God who is the source of humanity’s existence. There is also a purpose in the creation of humanity, a movement toward a particular goal, that is a participation in God, theosis. This remains humanity’s purpose, no matter what a human wills his purpose to be. “Man’s journey toward God must be an act of freedom and not of coercion. If a man did not have free will, he would have no enjoyment in divine gifts” (pg. 36). It is through the working out of our free-will that we can align ourselves to God’s will, and so progress towards Him. This means, however, that we are also able to act against our purpose as humans, to rebel, as it were, against our nature, and set ourselves at odds with God. God, makes use of our sins, however, and in His mercy He builds them into His divine economy, His plan for our salvation. Adam and Eve fall by succumbing to pride, God cures this through the Incarnation. He gives us something better, the possibility of a closer relationship with Him through the renewal of our nature, and through the Eucharist, than we had in Eden. We see this even in Christ’s own ancestors. Christ is descended from King David and his wife Bathsheba. Their union begins in adultery and murder, but it is this wife, of all King David’s wives, from whom Christ is descended. So, the Orthodox believe in synergia, a working together of God and man, in which humans are not radical free agents, but are created to a purpose, a purpose which we must freely accept, or work against. If we are, as humans, meant to move towards God, then, if we do not do this, then we are not fully human, or at least,
Answering Questions Atheists Have for Christians: Part I
According to a 2015 Pew Research Poll, approximately one third of Millennials in the United States, and nearing forty percent of younger Millennials, are not affiliated with any religious body (Millennials increasingly are driving growth of ‘nones’ | Pew Research Center). Not being religiously affiliated does not necessarily equate to atheism, untold numbers of people, then, are searching for the truth. If we are to engage with these people, to show them the light of Christ, then it is vital that we do not dismiss their questions, their doubts, even their misunderstandings and prejudices out of hand, or with glib answers about needing more faith, because then we will lose them. We must offer honest answers, even if that answer is: “I don’t know.” In an interesting post, Krystal Smith compiles a list of fifteen questions atheists have for Christians (15 Questions Atheists Want Christians to Answer (msn.com)). I hope to add a small part to this ongoing conversation by giving a glimpse of the Orthodox perspective on these questions. I have organized the fifteen questions into five topical groups. The first questions deal with the question of God’s existence. The atheist questions she compiled are: 1. “If God Created the Universe, then Who Created God?;” 2. “Where is the Proof that God exists?;” and 3. “Why Doesn’t God Show Himself?” Ultimately, these three questions are part of a larger conversation, that is: How can we know God exists? And, if He exists, how does He interact with us? In the Orthodox view of the universe and our understanding of the way that the universe works, the existence of God is assumed. In fact, St John of Damascus says, in his Exact Exposition on the Orthodox Faith, “That there is a God, then, is no matter of doubt.” The automatic response to such statement is usually along the lines of, “but science demands evidence!” This type of a response ignores the major assumption that allows for the scientific method, that we are able to trust empirical evidence in order to make observations about the universe, an assumption not universally accepted in philosophy, and one that can, ultimately, not be proven either way. This may sound almost glib, and is, of course, not to say that our ability to trust our senses is not a true assumption, but it is an assumption nonetheless. How, then, do we approach such a question? It immediately brings up a problem, how does one go about proving, or disproving the existence of something? If I were to ask someone to prove to me that he or she exists, this would pose certain problems, particularly the question of what would be acceptable evidence of existence? Renee Descartes basic premise of cogito ergo sum seems not work as evidence that you exist, as that person has no evidence that you cogitas! Following Descarte’s logic, however, if we are able to infer our own existence from our ability to reason, then we are able to identify our own thoughts. Being able to do so, we must be able to identify what is not our thought, and so be able to see what is an external input. Given external input we can infer a source of this input, which would be this other person. Perhaps, then, a reliance on reason can help us in proving the existence of God as well. Philosophical argumentation relies on logic, that is, human reason, to infer a necessary conclusion given a set of circumstances. This is, perhaps, not the type of “evidence” that is normally meant, when people ask for evidence of God, usually what is meant is some type of empirical evidence, nevertheless, this type of argumentation is used, for example is also used in mathematics, and other fields of study that do not rely on the scientific method. There is the classic argument, used already by the Stoics, that if we can infer the existence of an artificer from the existence of a product, then we can infer a Creator from the existence of creation. St John of Damascus argues in a similar vein in his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith as well: “All things, that exist, are either created or uncreated. If, then, things are created, it follows that they are also wholly mutable. For things, whose existence originated in change, must also be subject to change, whether it be that they perish or that they become other than they are by act of wills. But if things are uncreated they must in all consistency be also wholly immutable. For things which are opposed in the nature of their existence must also be opposed in the mode of their existence, that is to say, must have opposite properties: who, then, will refuse to grant that all existing things, not only such as come within the province of the senses, but even the very angels, are subject to change and transformation and movement of various kinds? For the things appertaining to the rational world, I mean angels and spirits and demons, are subject to changes of will, whether it is a progression or a retrogression in goodness, whether a struggle or a surrender; while the others suffer changes of generation and destruction, of increase and decrease, of quality and of movement in space. Things then that are mutable are also wholly created. But things that are created must be the work of some maker, and the maker cannot have been created. For if he had been created, he also must surely have been created by some one, and so on till we arrive at something uncreated. The Creator, then, being uncreated, is also wholly immutable. And what could this be other than Deity?” St John of Damascus assumes two types of beings, those that are created and those that are uncreated, those that are created are changeable, and must have been created by something, the created beings, then, presuppose the existence of a Creator. This Creator is uncreated, and
Hidden Treasures in the Greek of Scripture (Luke 11:27-28)
Without a doubt, the Orthodox love the Theotokos. She is for us a mother, an intercessor, a constant protection. We adorn our churches and homes with her icons, we pray to her, chant hymns to her, and celebrate the great moments of her life with feast days. Psalm 44:9, in its Messianic interpretation seems to validate the Orthodox understanding of the place of the Theotokos: παρέστη ἡ βασίλισσα ἐκ δεξιῶν σου ἐν ἱματισμῷ διαχρύσῳ περιβεβλημένη, πεποικιλμένη “The queen stood at Your right hand, in clothes of gold and robed in varied colors.” In this image, Christ is the king, and the Theotokos is the queen. We know this, because when James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Christ and asked Him if they could sit at his right hand and his left in the coming kingdom (Mark 10:37), Christ responds that those seats are already appointed for others. What if there exists a direct statement by Christ that shows that He does not approve of the veneration of the Theotokos? This would be rather devastating to the Orthodox. Such a passage seemingly exists in Luke 11:27-28: Ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν τῷ λέγειν αὐτὸν ταῦτα ἐπάρασά τις φωνὴν γυνὴ ἐκ τοῦ ὄχλου εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Μακαρία ἡ κοιλία ἡ βαστάσασά σε καὶ μαστοὶ οὓς ἐθήλασας. αὐτὸς δὲ εἶπεν, Μενοῦν μακάριοι οἱ ἀκούοντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ φυλάσσοντες. “It happened that while He was saying these things, a woman grew excited and said to Him from the crowd: ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which you sucked.’ He, however, said: ‘Nay, rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.’” A woman is so overcome with admiration for Christ’s teaching that she publicly exclaims her admiration and veneration for His mother. We would expect Christ to affirm this, but instead He makes it clear that she is not blessed, rather those people are blessed who “hear the word of God and keep it,” His disciples for example. This seems to pose a problem. How can the Orthodox continue to venerate Mary, to offer her the honor that we do, when Christ Himself seems to prohibit this? As this so clearly seems to contradict the Orthodox position on the veneration of Mary, one could expect the Church to attempt to gloss over this passage. This is exactly not the case, however, the Church offers exactly this passage as part of the Gospel readings for many of the most important feast days of the Theotokos, such as on the feast day of the Nativity of the Theotokos (Sept. 08th), the Dormition of the Theotokos (Aug. 15th), or during the Great Paraklesis services during the Dormition Fast. The readings for feast days are chosen particularly to accompany that feast, to edify the people with a greater understanding of the theological importance of the feast. Why, then, this passage in particular, if it seems to contradict the very heart of the Orthodox understanding of our relationship with the Theotokos, and her relationship with her Son? Much hinges on the translation of the term Μενοῦν. In many translations, this is given as “nay, rather” or “rather,” used as a disjunctive particle, placing what comes previous to the particle in opposition to that which follows. This particle, however, is also able to be translated as “indeed,” or “truly.” Two parts make up this word: Μεν – indeed and οῦν – therefore. Some translations reflect this distinction more accurately (such as the KJV) by rendering it as “yes (or yea), rather.” By keeping “rather” in the English translation, however, there is still as sense of contrast. In removing any sense of contrast, we see a very different passage in the translation: ‘”Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which you sucked.’ He, then, said: ‘Indeed, truly blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.’” (cf. Parallel passages such as Romans 9:20 and 10:18, where this term is found as well). In this reading, the woman calls out from the crowd and Christ affirms her veneration, affirms that she is, indeed “blessed.” This reading is far more internally consistent with the rest of the Gospel of Luke, consistent with the picture of the Theotokos we see in Luke 1:26-56, in the stories of the Annunciation and of the visitation to Elizabeth, in which the Theotokos is referred to as blessed, both εὐλογημενη and μακαρια. In the traditional, contrasting, translation, we would have to assume a disconnect, or lack of consistency in the Gospel narrative, which would have to be explained. By translating the term as “indeed, truly” we maintain a logical internal consistency within the narrative of the Gospel in regard to the Theotokos. What is the theological consequence of translating the passage in this way? Translating μενοῦν as a disjunctive particle only has one outcome, to declare that those who “hear the word of God and keep it” are “blessed,” with the implication that the Thetokos does not belong to this group. In the corrected translation, we see that this is not at all a repudiation of the Theotokos, but that Christ is laying out her veneration on two levels: 1. her motherhood and 2. her obedience to God. This, then, hearkens back to Luke 1:26-56, in which the Archangel Gabriel announces to the Theotokos that she is to bear the Christ. The angel calls her “blessed” and “full of grace” because of the enormity of the Incarnation, she is the only human being to ever bear God in the flesh, but this would never have come to pass if her response to God’s will had not been: “I am the handmaiden of the Lord, be it done to me according to His will.” As mother and as faithful servant, the Theotokos is the model for all Christians. We see too, that the woman’s exclamation is in the singular. The Theotokos, in her bearing Christ is unique. Christ’s response is in the
Fugit Inreparabile Tempus: Living In the Resurrection
In his Georgics, Vergil’s laments for the inevitability of the passing of time: “Time flees, unable to be restored.” How poignant this quote seems to us; life hurtles by in a flash, blink once and a week passes, blink again and it is a new school year. Our life seems to move in a steady line forward, from the moment we are born to the moment we die. The human preoccupation with the passage of time and its inevitable ending in death leads, for example, to the anthropomorphic figure of father time, who, with his hourglass and scythe, reminds of what the passage of time brings. Artificial Immortality Time, and its inevitable outcome, is an object of fascination and horror to our society. While we abhor the idea of dying, we still seem fascinated by it, picking at this idea that horrifies us like at a scab. Now, with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, it has even become possible to create a type of digital immortality. In a fascinating article, Engadget writer James Trew discusses the current abilities of Artificial Intelligence and their application in grieving: “For just $10,000 dollars and a few hours in a studio, you can create an avatar of yourself that your family can visit (an additional cost) at an offsite facility.” This service is still limited, only able to replicate the deceased person in a superficial way: “By all accounts, the pre-trained chatbots provide convincing answers in their owners’ voices — until the illusion is unceremoniously broken when it robotically responds ‘Sorry, I didn’t understand that. You can try asking another way, or move onto another topic’ to any query it doesn’t have an answer for.” Nevertheless, as this type of technology is in its infancy, the ability for family members to ignore their own mortality by using Artificial Intelligence to create an artificial immortality is only likely to improve. The Church of the Resurrection It is, perhaps, a natural thing for humans to long for immortality, to abhor the end of their lives; this longing is by no means a modern attitude. St. Gregory of Nyssa witnesses to this when he says, in his treatise On the Soul and Resurrection: “There is such an instinctive and deep-seated abhorrence of death in all! Those who look on a death-bed can hardly bear the sight; and those whom death approaches recoil from him all they can. Why, even the law that controls us puts death highest on the list of crimes, and highest on the list of punishments.” In this treatise, he is reprimanded by his sister for his undue mourning for his brother, St. Basil the Great. He exclaims: “By what device, then, can we bring ourselves to regard as nothing a departure from life even in the case of a stranger, not to mention that of relations…” As if directly answering this question, Patriarch John X said, in an address to the Antiochian Archdiocese Convention in July of 2023: “…in the midst of all these present difficulties, we still endeavor to show the world that Orthodoxy is the church of beauty and joy, the Church of the Resurrection and victory over death.” The Orthodox Church is the Church of the Resurrection; in living the Resurrection we leave time behind and participate in eternity. We do this in particular by our participation in the Divine Liturgy. It is for this reason that we celebrate the Divine Liturgy primarily on the Lord’s Day, on Sunday, as this is the Day of Resurrection. Not only is this the “first day of the week,” it is also the eighth day of the old week, and so transcends the limits of time, an eschatological day. It is no coincidence that St. John received the vision of the Revelation while he was “in the spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10). St. John is “in the spirit,” i.e. he is worshipping, he is participating in the Divine Liturgy, and so receives a revelation of eternal things while in eternity. In the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy, after all, the priest remembers “all that has been done for our sake: the Cross, the tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand, and the second and glorious coming again.” In the Resurrection, there is no distinction between what would seem to us to have taken place already and that which has not taken place yet, since we are outside of time. So, we understand eschatology in a sense as “already, but not yet;” we live in the eternity of the kingdom now, the fulfillment of which will be in the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What’s in a Name? (Easter vs. Pascha)
It seems like every Paschal season, Orthodox Christians are faced with some attack on the faith, these have been varied in nature, but some gems that stick out are, for example, the popularization in 2007 of the so-called “family tomb” of Jesus. This was a tomb containing several ossuaries that purported to belong to Jesus, and various members of his family. In recent decades, although the idea itself can be traced back to the folklorists and antiquarians of the nineteenth century, it has become more and more popular to attack the idea that Christ, as God, rose from the dead on Pascha, but the very idea that this is a uniquely Christian festival. Eoster and Ostara Through a variety of misunderstandings, and a great deal of ignorance, various groups, both neo-pagan groups as well as Protestants reacting to what they perceive as Roman Catholic error (an interesting, if rather slapdash article entitled Paganism and Easter published in 2009 is an example of this) have claimed that the celebration of Pascha is actually a pagan festival that was adopted by Christians. Much of the misunderstanding comes from the name we use for the celebration of the Resurrection in English, Easter. The blog ancient-origins makes a startling claim about the potential origins for the celebration of Easter: “Easter was originally a celebration of Eostre, goddess of Spring, otherwise known as Ostara, Austra, and Eastre. One of the most revered aspects of Ostara for both ancient and modern observers is a spirit of renewal. Celebrated at Spring Equinox on March 21, Ostara marks the day when light is equal to darkness and will continue to grow. As the bringer of light after a long dark winter, the goddess was often depicted with the hare, an animal that represents the arrival of spring as well as the fertility of the season.” The Venerable Bede, a seventh century theologian and scholar gives us one of the only testimonies about this goddess in all Anglo-Saxon literature. Her name, Eoster, and the High German version of her name “Ostara,” which was postulated by the linguist Jacob Grimm. The name of this goddess is related to the Greek goddess Eos, and the Roman goddess Aurora, related to the word for east, this is then, a goddess of the rising sun, he says: “Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the Christian’s God.” The existence of this Eoster/Ostara goddess and the utilization of her name for the Christian feast day of Christ’s Resurreciton, has led to the creation of some puzzling postulated origins of Easter customs. Adolf Holtzmann, a late nineteenth century scholar, for example, postulated that the rabbit or hare must have been a sacred animal associated with Eoster (Holtzmann Deutsche Mythologie). The Easter bunny, however, is not an ancient custom, but is first recorded in the seventeenth century Germany. In looking at what the Venerable Bede says about Eoster, we see that there is no actual connection between the two festivals: Eostur-monath, qui nunc Paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a Dea illorum quæ Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant nomen habuit: a cujus nomine nunc Paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquæ observationis vocabulo gaudia novæ solemnitatis vocantes. (Venerable Bede De Mensibus Anglorum 15) Eoster month, which we now understand to be the Paschal month, was formerly called so after a goddess of theirs Eoster, and for whom in that month a festival was celebrated, from which that month takes its name. That same name is now given to the time of Pascha, calling the joy of the new celebration with the accustomed name of the ancient observation. The Christians did not appropriate the holiday of another religion and pass it off as their own, in the hopes of making Christianity more palatable for pagans, or something of that nature. Rather, the Christian celebration falls generally in a month that bears the name of a pagan festival. This name is later adopted for the Christian festival, that is the only connection. Easter or Ishtar? Some have postulated that, rather than being connected to the Germanic goddess Eoster/Ostara, there is a connection to be made between the Christian festival and the worship of the Sumerian/Babylonian goddess Inanna/Ishtar. This connection has gained notoriety recently, in the last twenty years or so, due to a proliferation of posts on Facebook, which point out a similarity in the pronunciation of Ishtar and Easter: “After Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus. But at its roots, Easter (which is how you pronounce Ishtar)…” (Quoted in Beyond Ishtar: The Tradition of Eggs at Easter in The Scientific American 2013). As with the claims made with the goddess Eoster, there are a number of misconceptions about the goddess Inanna/Ishtar, which lead to apparent connections with the celebration of Easter. There are claims, for example, that she is associated with eggs and bunnies, as a fertility goddess, but these are spurious at best, as she is more normally associated with the lion, the morning star, and with the eight and sixteen pointed star (Ibid). The most interesting evidence of a connection between the story to Christ’s Resurrection and the goddess Inanna/Ishtar comes from an enigmatic Sumerian epic poem called the Descent of Inanna. In this poem, the goddess Inanna descends to the underworld, she then resurrects from the dead. Assuming, for the moment that the early Christians would have had any knowledge at all of this poem, which is one of the most ancient poems in human history, and would not have been in the reading repertoire of even the highly educated in the Roman empire there are, in a broad sweeping sense, parallels between the story in this Descent of Inanna and Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, both Christ and Inanna descend to the underworld and resurrect. This is where the parallels between the two stories end. “From the great heaven she set her mind on