Topic: Questions on Theosis and the ontological theory of salvation

[qawe]

I have two questions:

1. Why was Christ's death and resurrection necessary, if through His Incarnation, he already abolished the dichotomy between man and God through the hypostatic union of his humanity and divinity?

2. Without penal substitution and satisfaction, how is our sin, apart from the notion of death which is addressed by Christus Victor, gotten rid of?

Please I don't want to start an argument about Orthodoxy v Catholicism and Western captivity, etc...

[ialmisry]

'Khristos af-don'f!

I have two questions:

1. Why was Christ's death and resurrection necessary, if through His Incarnation, he already abolished the dichotomy between man and God through the hypostatic union of his humanity and divinity?

He had to free the righteous souls and blaze the trail to heaven.

2. Without penal substitution and satisfaction, how is our sin, apart from the notion of death which is addressed by Christus Victor, gotten rid of?

Think of Holy Communion as an inoculation to sin.

Please I don't want to start an argument about Orthodoxy v Catholicism and Western captivity, etc...

No need to bring them up.

[qawe]

Thanks, isa, and nice coptic skills too (are you trying to type in Old Bohairic as opposed to Greco-Bohairic?)

[ialmisry]

Thanks, isa, and nice coptic skills too (are you trying to type in Old Bohairic as opposed to Greco-Bohairic?)

neither: the screen comes up boxes when I type Coptic font.

[Romaios]

1. Why was Christ's death and resurrection necessary, if through His Incarnation, he already abolished the dichotomy between man and God through the hypostatic union of his humanity and divinity?

Out of solidarity with all the righteous and the prophets of the OT, from Abel to St. John the Baptist - he knew very well that "Jerusalem kills prophets" and chose to go there nevertheless. He wasn't one to take the easy way out of this life. He drank the cup of human misery to the bitter end.

‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture,
so that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected.’

Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hoped for the wages of holiness,
nor discerned the prize for blameless souls.

[akimel]

I have two questions:

1. Why was Christ's death and resurrection necessary, if through His Incarnation, he already abolished the dichotomy between man and God through the hypostatic union of his humanity and divinity?

2. Without penal substitution and satisfaction, how is our sin, apart from the notion of death which is addressed by Christus Victor, gotten rid of?

Please read Fr John Meyendorff's essay "Christ's Humanity: The Paschal Mystery."  Think of the Incarnation as a dynamic event, comprehending our Lord's birth, his life, and his death. 

[qawe]

I have two questions:

1. Why was Christ's death and resurrection necessary, if through His Incarnation, he already abolished the dichotomy between man and God through the hypostatic union of his humanity and divinity?

2. Without penal substitution and satisfaction, how is our sin, apart from the notion of death which is addressed by Christus Victor, gotten rid of?

Please read Fr John Meyendorff's essay "Christ's Humanity: The Paschal Mystery."  Think of the Incarnation as a dynamic event, comprehending our Lord's birth, his life, and his death. 

OK, Thanks, will do

[john_mo]

This is a very interesting question, and one which I have been wondering too.

...

Please read Fr John Meyendorff's essay "Christ's Humanity: The Paschal Mystery."  Think of the Incarnation as a dynamic event, comprehending our Lord's birth, his life, and his death. 

Link was broken. I fixed it, and will give it a read.

[Fabio Leite]

I just created a presentation to explain that.

Fig 1. We see human life, vulnerable to death, destructable by death.

Fig 2. Here we see divine life, "rock-hard". If the gear of death was to grind it, the gear would break, not the rock of divine life. Yet, divine life does not go to death of its own nature.

Fig 3. In the person of Jesus Christ, divine life and human life are united without mixture. But when divine life follows human life to its tragic end, the gear of death cannot grind it and breaks. Human life is now attached to divine life and can no longer be destroyed. Matter still can, but life itself can't. Death is defeated. Resurrection will "just" be the assignement of new glorified matter to life that was preserved.

Incarnation, therefore, is not only the birth, but union in all phases: birth, life and death. Only that way divine life can destroy death by "jumping into it", or "killing death by Its own death".

Notice that the Second Person, the Son, has all the divinity if we consider length as a symbol of divinity. It has just one third of the height, though, because it's just one of the Three Persons. Human nature, though, is almost completely taken into the Secon Person, except for our sins.

Our human conscience, can be inside the person of Jesus after the resurrection (that'll be Heaven), or outside, with our sins (that'll be Hell).

By the way, that is the universal aspect of salvation, regardless of faith. You don't have to be in the church to gain that kind of immortality. It's already done, our nature and God's united in Jesus Christ. The Church is something entirely different.

I have two questions:

1. Why was Christ's death and resurrection necessary, if through His Incarnation, he already abolished the dichotomy between man and God through the hypostatic union of his humanity and divinity?

2. Without penal substitution and satisfaction, how is our sin, apart from the notion of death which is addressed by Christus Victor, gotten rid of?

Please I don't want to start an argument about Orthodoxy v Catholicism and Western captivity, etc...

[IoanC]

1. The Fathers say that Christ would have become incarnate regardless of man's fall into sin. He was going to become one of us to teach us how to be like Him (theosis). The fact that He died and resurrected is both a consequence of sin having entered the world and the need to save us as a result. In other words, Christ was very much a victim, yet not a passive one, but one who willingly died (and resurrected) in order to save us.

2. There is no penal substitution in Orthodoxy. If you want to substitute something, you could substitute the coldness and unwillingness to forgive that sin causes with God's infinite sacrificial love who allows itself to be eaten and drunk (Eucharist) even as we hurt and kill Him. So, Christ defeats evil through love.