Explain this heresy!

[Ghosty]

Do you know who these certain people are?

Would you say that this is a common opinion, or is this something coming from a conciliar decision?

Well, the Byzantine East has the unique position of being the only Apostolic tradition that positively asserts that Arius is in Hell, IIRC. Fr. Ambrose has mentioned this a few times in various threads. That being said, I think most Eastern Orthodox would tend towards the same view as the other Apostolic Christians, namely that we can’t positively assert that any given individual is Damned, only that certainly some individuals are Damned.

As for whether it’s opinion versus conciliar decision, it depends on what you mean; the line between conciliar and “popular opinion” is very hazy in Eastern Orthodoxy. Apokatastasis, the final salvation of all, is formally condemned, and therefore some souls are positively damned by definition. No distinction is made between the “apokatastasis” of St. Gregory of Nyssa, and that of Origin, simply the notion that all souls will be saved in general, and it is generally recognized that St. Gregory of Nyssa erred on this point.

While a “wiki” source, you can check out OrthodoxWiki for a general discussion on the matter, and references to Church Fathers who explicitely rejected the apocatastasis of St. Gregory of Nyssa.

orthodoxwiki.org/Apocatastasis

Peace and God bless!

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

God’s presence is both the light of beatific vision to the saved and the fire of torment to the damned…

How can this be, as hell is defined as eternal seperation from god? The torment involved is like that of placing a feast just out of reach of the starving man.

 

[Ahimsa]

How can this be, as hell is defined as eternal seperation from god?

Yeah, but God is everywhere, right?

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

Yeah, but God is everywhere, right?

Yes he is,but in actuality hell is nowhere. This infact is another demension of its unimaginable pain. To be in hell you must be expeled from reality (and thus from god). Does this mean that the damned cease to be? No but from their perspective everthing else does.

 

[Mintaka]

It sounds like the Eastern Catholic/Orthodox view is just coming at the same thing from a different direction, with different terms.

When we die, we go into eternity. We aren’t inside time and space any more. So it’s pretty pointless to say “you immediately go either to Heaven/Purgatory or Hell”, and it’s pretty pointless to say “until the Last Judgment, your fate wavers between Heaven and Hell”. There is no time then. So both are true, probably; it’s a wave and a particle. There’s no time there, so the Last Judgment is the next moment after you die and an endless moment after you die. Either way, praying for the dead is a good thing to do.

Sigh. Head hurty. Mysteries do that.

 

[Greg27]

My understanding is the Orthodox have a somewhat more dynamic view of what happens after death than the Latin one, which is more static. St Thomas defined heaven basically as the eternal and changeless contemplation of God’s essence, which is happiness, while hell is the eternal deprivation of this vision, which is eternal pain.

Orthodox on the other hand hold that saints have an ever ongoing, ever deepening vision of God’s glory which however does not encompass a vision in which God’s essence is seen, as it cannot ever be seen by any human or angel, even in glory. There is also a process of purification after death not categorised as precisely as the Latin distinction between heaven and purgatory.

I think the difference comes a lot from when scholastics applied philosophical logic to theological mysteries; this can be seen in the precise categorisation and legalism which often you can see in the pronouncements of medieval theologians and church councils. Last things are worked out in a similar way, with certain categories of people making it or being excluded from heaven for some logical reason or another. Likewise hell is often seen in terms of punishment and God’s justice rather than in terms of self-chosen turning from God.

 

[Ghosty]

Greg27: I wouldn’t call the Latin view “changeless”, especially if you read St. Thomas Aquinas directly. While the substance of it doesn’t change, it’s definitely not static, but rather entirely dynamic. The difference between the Latin view and the Eastern Orthodox view, as you’ve presented it, is that the Eastern Orthodox don’t believe you can ever truly receive “God as He is”, while the Latins argue that the Blessed will eternally receive “God as He is” infinitely, without comprehension. So while we won’t move “closer to God” in Heaven, all movements of the soul and appreciation of all things won’t cease, or collapse into a single static moment. The reason for this difference is obvious: if you receive God “as He is”, even if it’s not comprehended, you can’t approach a “more perfect” grasp of God in terms of proximity, even if you would “swim forever” in the ocean of God.

So while the Eastern Orthodox view (again, as you’ve presented it) might be considered more “dynamic” in the sense of motion, it’s much less dynamic in its scope, much as a baseball game is more dynamic than the Divine Liturgy. In the Eastern Orthodox view, you would be always getting closer to an ocean that you could never reach; in the Latin view you would always be swimming within an ocean you could never fully explore, nor drink up.

Of course I’m only refering to the ideas as they appear in your post. I know that the Eastern Orthodox view doesn’t necessarily hold to the ideas as they appear here. I say this more to clarify the Latin tradition, rather than to say anything definitive about the Eastern traditions (which aren’t actually so easily translated to Latin approaches).

Peace and God bless!

 

[Greg27]

This sounds quite interesting. My understanding of St Thomas is in the state of beautitude there is a transformation by grace which allows the blessed to see what God is directly, though my understanding was this contemplation involved no movement in the part of the blessed soul; perhaps I saw it as God ‘infusing’ the direct vision of his essence into the soul according to its capacity to receive, but there is no movement on the part of the blessed soul itself.

My understanding of the Orthodox (mostly from Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Palamas) is deification by grace involves elevating the soul of the saint into God, via God’s energies, and this process is ever ongoing, but there is no immediate infused vision which gives the saint a direct and everlasting vision of the divine essence. My understanding of St Thomas is the blessed see the divine essence but do not comprehend the divine essence in an instant and single act, as God is able to understand himself perfectly (given his simplicity and infinite blessedness in himself). But the Orthodox view on the other hand, is the vision of God occurs in terms of God’s energies, which are God, but not the transcendant essence, which is invisible and can’t be partaken in by any creature, no matter what the level of grace.

A third alternative, that of John the Scot, was that we only see God as appearances of the deity or theophanies to the human mind, while God’s essence because of its awesome infinity, can’t be experienced by a direct and immediate vision.

Surprisingly, perhaps because of my philosophical sympathies, I find the idea of John the Scot the most attractive of these three, even though one Council declared the blessed will see God without the mediation of any creature.

In any case the vision of God is of utmost importance and I sometimes get dissapointed it doesn’t seem to be discussed here more frequently.

 

[edwinmvibar]

When my brother was still alive he told me such a thing “… that everyone will be saved…”. I guess it is the same thing as whay you call that which I only met today, “Apostakakis”?

I answered him that that was “presumption” which according to what I know as a Catholic is a sin.

Also, I read in Ezekiel, if my memory is right, and, pardon me because I cannot exactly remember the Chapter and verse number, which says , in paraphrase, … when a righteous man ceases from his righteousness and starts doing evil, he must surely die; and when the evil man stops doing evil end begins to be righteous, he shall surely live and not die…

If that apostakakis is true, then there will be no need for the commandments, and maybe for that matter, God.

And then the end of the world comes. Then hell.

 

[chris_molter]

I’m personally opposed to the doctrine of apokatastasis, which was originally taught in conjunction with other heresies (such as the pre-existence of the soul) by Origen. It’s very difficult to determine if the anathemas against Origen’s teachings include apokatastasis alone, though, since the wording of the anathema is somewhat vague and seems primarily aimed at the conjunction of the pre-existent soul and the “final restoration”. Also a large number of otherwise orthodox saints believed, taught, or appeared to support apokatastasis without the belief in the pre-existing soul, such as Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor.

I can’t see any functional difference between apokatastasis and universalism, which IMO is a horrible thing, since it practically strips mankind of our free will and makes us nothing but “God’s puppets” or some kind of pre-programmed automaton.

 

[Ghosty]

My understanding of St Thomas is in the state of beautitude there is a transformation by grace which allows the blessed to see what God is directly, though my understanding was this contemplation involved no movement in the part of the blessed soul; perhaps I saw it as God ‘infusing’ the direct vision of his essence into the soul according to its capacity to receive, but there is no movement on the part of the blessed soul itself.

Your understanding is correct as far as it goes, it just doesn’t take into consideration what the possession of the Divine Vision implies, nor does it consider the use of the body and such after the Resurrection. Leaving aside the faculties of the body which are regained with the Resurrection, the Beatific Vision itself is a dynamic reality, though it doesn’t “increase”. Remember, it’s nothing else than the vision of “pure, infinite act” Itself, and this act contains in Itself all things. So all things possible to be known in God are known at once, and without succession, but it’s not a stasis in the sense of “doing nothing”. After all, those mystics (including Aquinas) who experienced ecstasy (temporary Beatific Vision while still alive) certainly report, to the best of their abilities, a vast magnitude of understanding and mental activity, albeit not as a progression like we grow in knowledge in this life; it’s constantly infinite and incomprehensible, everything occuring in a single moment and a single possession and act, rather than a progressive unfolding of the infinite as if we are more and more blessed moment to moment.

As for the bodily functions of the soul, it suffices simply to quote the Third Part of the Summa, not written by Aquinas himself but following from his teachings and ideas:

But even after they have climbed the heavens, it is likely that they will sometimes move according as it pleases them; so that by actually putting into practice that which is in their power, they may show forth the excellence of Divine wisdom, and that furthermore their vision may be refreshed by the beauty of the variety of creatures, in which God’s wisdom will shine forth with great evidence: for sense can only perceive that which is present, although glorified bodies can perceive from a greater distance than non-glorified bodies. And yet movement will nowise diminish their happiness which consists in seeing God, for He will be everywhere present to them; thus Gregory says of the angels (Hom. xxxiv in Evang.) that “wherever they are sent their course lies in God.”

So it’s a combination of an infinite act of the intellect in the Beatific Vision, and the continuing acts of the soul as regards creatures, though these acts will be refined in a manner that is beyond our current understanding.

Peace and God bless!

 

[dessert]

I think we all give each other a little bit o heaven or a lot a hell, but I am trying to just get on this thread to read it.

The fruit of the divine esscence of the divine we can see and lack of surely destined for darkness. IMHO
Dessert

 

[Timmy_Z]

Isn’t Hebrews pretty clear that after death we face judgment (9:27). Can that judgment of God then be changed?

-Tim

 

[Greg27]

Your understanding is correct as far as it goes, it just doesn’t take into consideration what the possession of the Divine Vision implies, nor does it consider the use of the body and such after the Resurrection. Leaving aside the faculties of the body which are regained with the Resurrection, the Beatific Vision itself is a dynamic reality, though it doesn’t “increase”. Remember, it’s nothing else than the vision of “pure, infinite act” Itself, and this act contains in Itself all things. So all things possible to be known in God are known at once, and without succession, but it’s not a stasis in the sense of “doing nothing”. After all, those mystics (including Aquinas) who experienced ecstasy (temporary Beatific Vision while still alive) certainly report, to the best of their abilities, a vast magnitude of understanding and mental activity, albeit not as a progression like we grow in knowledge in this life; it’s constantly infinite and incomprehensible, everything occuring in a single moment and a single possession and act, rather than a progressive unfolding of the infinite as if we are more and more blessed moment to moment.

As for the bodily functions of the soul, it suffices simply to quote the Third Part of the Summa, not written by Aquinas himself but following from his teachings and ideas:

So it’s a combination of an infinite act of the intellect in the Beatific Vision, and the continuing acts of the soul as regards creatures, though these acts will be refined in a manner that is beyond our current understanding.

Peace and God bless!

Thank you. I think that clears a couple of things up for me.

 

[Ghosty]

Thank you. I think that clears a couple of things up for me.

Glad to hear it. I hope my initial statements weren’t overly confusing. I’m so used to talking about these things with trained Dominicans that I forget how terms sound outside of that context.

Peace and God bless!