Lutheran critique of Eastern Orthodoxy and Authority

[Harpazo]

The irony, however, is that they’re willing to completely divorce themselves from the Catholic Church over the filoque, which many would consider not a huge matter, and yet on the huge topic of Original Sin and the Atonement it wasn’t a deal breaker and it’s not much discussed?

Christ is risen!

We don’t see ourselves as divorcing ourselves from the Catholic Church. We believe that we ARE the Catholic Church.

This might seem a little far fetched to many Western Christians (Roman Catholics in particular), but Orthodox Christians see the filioque as fundamentally altering God, his nature, essence, etc. Many would say that Catholics worship a different God than the Orthodox do.

In Christ,
Andrew

 

[TriuneUnity]

Christ is risen!

We don’t see ourselves as divorcing ourselves from the Catholic Church. We believe that we ARE the Catholic Church.

This might seem a little far fetched to many Western Christians (Roman Catholics in particular), but Orthodox Christians see the filioque as fundamentally altering God, his nature, essence, etc. Many would say that Catholics worship a different God than the Orthodox do.

In Christ,
Andrew

Wow… and I thought I was critical of Roman Catholic teaching lol

 

[Hesychios]

In my somewhat limitted knowledge of EO, I would say that this thread tends to demonstrate how the EO and western churches differ in their outlook. EO believe the Holy Spirit acts as a guide in the church. However, unlike those in the west they do not spend so much time presuming they can describe and define exactly how it works. …

More precisely, one can never know exactly how God works (for that, one has to BE God), and it is not at all necessary.

To pretend that we can define more and more, or think that knowing more is somehow better or knowing more is in some way part of the goal is a bit like glorifying the human creaturely intellect.

It is not for nothing that apophatic reasoning is the dominant method used in describing God and His works in the Orthodox east. Apophatic reasoning is present in the west as well but is more of an undercurrent of thought, more prevalent among mystics (see "Cloud of Unknowing’). The scholastic side of western thought differs considerably and it is here we find those who have speculated so much on theology, driving the development of doctrine.