Philokalia

Nobody is praying to mary. You people accuse us of something you don’t even understand.

If God is existence, then we must exist a certain way to experience Him. If God is being, then we must be a certain way to become One with Him. Ironically, knowing God has little to do with knowledge. It comes from a mode of life, hence Christ calling himself the Way and the Life

I've noticed young men are into RCC/EO because it's trendy, not bc it's true. They like the colors, buzz, & pomp of the thing. It's cooler than to settle for the simplicity of Christ & worshipping Him in Spirit & truth. It's vainglory that leads them, not the Spirit of God.

Taco won’t bother addressing any of these I’m sure… Problems with the Penal Substitution Atonement theory (PSA): PSA implies opposition between Father and Son, contradicting Trinitarian doctrine: the three Persons share one undivided essence, will, and love, acting in perfect harmony. The idea of the Father turning against the Son in wrath fractures the seamless unity of the Triune God. God cannot simply forgive out of love but instead requires a violent sacrifice to satisfy His anger or justice. This makes forgiveness conditional on punishment rather than a free, merciful act. PSA can suggest God is constrained by a higher principle of retributive justice that even He must satisfy, limiting divine freedom and portraying Him as less sovereign or merciful than Scripture depicts. If the just penalty for sin is eternal separation from God, as some suggest, how could Jesus’ finite suffering, hours on the cross, followed by death and resurrection after three days, possibly pay that full, infinite/eternal penalty? PSA portrays God as punishing the innocent. Justice requires that only the guilty face punishment, and guilt cannot be transferred. Yet in PSA, Christ— perfectly innocent—is punished for humanity’s sins, making God appear unjust. Old Testament sacrifices weren’t about transferring punishment from the guilty to an innocent victim. They were mainly about purification and restoring the relationship with God. The Passover lamb, for example, wasn’t punished for sin; it was eaten as a sacred meal. The New Testament wouldn't break from the Old Testament typology of what sacrifices accomplished. Penal substitutionary atonement was largely absent from the early Church and only became prominent after the Reformation. Even medieval theologians like Anselm, who spoke of Christ satisfying what was owed for sin, did not promote the idea that Christ received punishment from the Father. That idea developed very late in Christian history. Scripture shows death as the result of turning from God, not a punishment he imposes. If death is a consequence, not a penalty, there is nothing for Christ to “take” in our place. He enters death to defeat it, freeing humanity from sin and restoring our life with God, not simply satisfying a legal sentence. objections: Propitiation: The New Testament word hilasterion, often translated “propitiation,” can mean cleansing or the mercy seat rather than appeasing God’s wrath. Romans 3:25 emphasizes Christ removing sin and restoring fellowship with God, not satisfying a legal penalty. The Bible never says Christ was punished by the Father to satisfy divine wrath, so PSA reads ideas into the text that were never there. Isaiah 53 Isaiah 53 is a central prophecy for defenders of penal substitutionary atonement, yet it is often taken out of context. Nowhere in Isaiah does it say that the Father is punishing Christ. Verse 4 tells us that although he “bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” Reworded, this reflects humanity’s perception that he is afflicted by God, not that God has actively punished him. Verse 5 says, “by his stripes we are healed,” not “by his stripes the Father is appeased.” A literal translation from the Septuagint makes this even clearer: “The one our sins bore and on account of us he was grieved. And we considered him to be a misery, and for calamity by God, and for ill-treatment. But he was wounded because of our sins and was made infirm on account of our lawless deeds.” Isaiah 53, properly read, is a prophecy of Christ’s healing and restorative work, emphasizing his solidarity with human suffering and the redemption he brings, rather than a narrow focus on satisfying divine wrath.