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4 years ago ::
Oct 23, 2008 - 12:05PM
#1
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Pardon my intrusion into your forum. I had not heard of Maltheism specifially before today and it reminded me of an essay I read first several years ago that might make an interesting subject of conversation given the nature of your belief system. It is called River of Fire and was originally a lecture delivered at an Orthodox youth conference some years ago. In substance it is a sharp critique of certain key aspects of western Christian theology (so called). Here is the link ( http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm). Here follows an excerpt:
Did you ever try to pinpoint what is the principal characteristic of Western theology? Well, its principal characteristic is that it considers God as the real cause of all evil.
What is evil? Is it not the estrangement from God Who is Life? 1 Is it not death? What does Western theology teach about death? All Roman Catholics and most Protestants consider death as a punishment from God. God considered all men guilty of Adam's sin and punished them by death, that is by cutting them away from Himself; depriving them of His live giving energy, and so killing them spiritually at first and later bodily, by some sort of spiritual starvation. Augustine interprets the passage in Genesis "If you eat of the fruit of this tree, you will die the death" as "If you eat of the fruit of this tree, I will kill you".
Some Protestants consider death not as a punishment but as something natural. But. is not God the creator of all natural things? So in both cases, God — for them — is the real cause of death.
And this is true not only for the death of the body. It is equally true for the death of the soul. Do not Western theologians consider hell, the eternal spiritual death of man, as a punishment from God? And do they not consider the devil as a minister of God for the eternal punishment of men in hell?
The "God" of the West is an offended and angry God, full of wrath for the disobedience of men, who desires in His destructive passion to torment all humanity unto eternity for their sins, unless He receives an infinite satisfaction for His offended pride.
What is the Western dogma of salvation? Did not God kill God in order to satisfy His pride, which the Westerners euphemistically call justice? And is it not by this infinite satisfaction that He deigns to accept the salvation of some of us?
What is salvation for Western theology? Is it not salvation from the wrath of God? 2
Do you see, then, that Western theology teaches that our real danger and our real enemy is our Creator and God? Salvation, for Westerners, is to be saved from the hands of God!
How can one love such a God? How can we have faith in someone we detest? Faith in its deeper essence is a product of love, therefore, it would be our desire that one who threatens us not even exist, especially when this threat is eternal.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 28, 2008 - 11:30PM
#2
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[QUOTE=Seraphim;845104]Pardon my intrusion into your forum. I had not heard of Maltheism specifially before today and it reminded me of an essay I read first several years ago that might make an interesting subject of conversation given the nature of your belief system. It is called River of Fire and was originally a lecture delivered at an Orthodox youth conference some years ago. In substance it is a sharp critique of certain key aspects of western Christian theology (so called). Here is the link ( http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm). Here follows an excerpt:[/QUOTE]
Thank you for this essay. It eloquently puts forth some of the reasons we maltheists believe God is evil. Indeed, many non-believers use our arguments to persuade others that God does not exist or is not worthy of worship. I would say the only difference betweeu us is that we believe this God actually exists as a malevolent spiritual being (but not necessarily the Creator or supreme being), while they probably do not believe in God at all.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 28, 2008 - 11:30PM
#3
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[QUOTE=Seraphim;845104]Pardon my intrusion into your forum. I had not heard of Maltheism specifially before today and it reminded me of an essay I read first several years ago that might make an interesting subject of conversation given the nature of your belief system. It is called River of Fire and was originally a lecture delivered at an Orthodox youth conference some years ago. In substance it is a sharp critique of certain key aspects of western Christian theology (so called). Here is the link ( http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm). Here follows an excerpt:[/QUOTE]
Thank you for this essay. It eloquently puts forth some of the reasons we maltheists believe God is evil. Indeed, many non-believers use our arguments to persuade others that God does not exist or is not worthy of worship. I would say the only difference betweeu us is that we believe this God actually exists as a malevolent spiritual being (but not necessarily the Creator or supreme being), while they probably do not believe in God at all.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 30, 2008 - 10:51AM
#4
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I thought you might like it, however I would note that the author of the article while he would consider "God must be evil" the logical consequence of Western theology if it is true, he would further argue that western theology is patently untrue with regard to its notions of justice and soteriology. So to believe God is evil is also to believe that western theology has correctly articulated God's motivations and attributes with regard to salvation. The point of this article is to demonstrate rather forcefully that it has not.
So that makes me wonder with regard to your belief system if the possibility is ever considered that your view of God was shaped in reaction to a grossly errant theology?
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4 years ago ::
Nov 04, 2008 - 11:53PM
#5
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I thought you might like it, however I would note that the author of the article while he would consider "God must be evil" the logical consequence of Western theology if it is true, he would further argue that western theology is patently untrue with regard to its notions of justice and soteriology. So to believe God is evil is also to believe that western theology has correctly articulated God's motivations and attributes with regard to salvation. The point of this article is to demonstrate rather forcefully that it has not.
So that makes me wonder with regard to your belief system if the possibility is ever considered that your view of God was shaped in reaction to a grossly errant theology?
I have considered this, but how is anyone really to know if they have the right theology? One of the reasons I think God is unworthy of worship if not actually evil is he does not make it clear what the correct theology is. We are left to grope and hope the damners are not correct that we are damned if we don't believe as they do. It isn't just Western Theology that damns us wrong believers......Don't the Middle Eastern Islamic Jihadists also damn us for believing wrongly......I don't know enough about other faiths to know if incorrect believers are damned. Can anyone name some other non-christian damning religions?
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4 years ago ::
Nov 06, 2008 - 6:03PM
#6
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Eastern Christian theology has a vastly different tack though. It's core soteriology is non-juridical but rather is laturetic in its orientation. The clearly (not the wrong understood) juridical passages in scripture are considered theological baby talk...don't run into traffic or mommy will spank sort of stuff. It address the recorder at the place that those who heard could gain some benefit and not overshoot their capacity for a deeper fuller understanding of what intent was in God's heart. Many Christians communions excercise no such discernment regarding Scripture and take it all as equivolent...rather than treating the See Spot run passages differently than "the quality of mercy is not strained.." passages. Hence a lot is gotten very wrong though it seems to tie up neatly with a bow.
Granted you will still find a lot of conversation about hell and judgment in Orthodox liturgical and spiritual writings, but the content...the meaning of those terms is filled so very differently in Orthodoxy than in western Christianity...just like our understanding of Salvation. Same word, but a very different understanding between east and west.
So I would not say God has left us no way to know who is correct, He has infact given us a very simple test. 1. they will be of the same spirit (when I was hungry you fed me, etc), 2 A good tree bears good fruit. 3. The works I do you will do and greater.
He also warned us that the enemy would so tares among the wheat so that until the very day of harvest they will be intermingled.
The leads me to believe just because someone professess Christianity does not mean they are suitable exemplar's of it, though they may seem to be its most common type. But this can be true of any one or any group...so I say search out the very best fruit over time produced by any group making these Chrsitian truth claims. Where you find what is essentially a reduplication in kind of the kinds of faithful and depth of faith seen in the NT then you have found real full Christianity...Examine that theology and see what it teaches about God, for that will be the one in and through which God has revealed Himself in the world. Then you can make the God is good or not assessment. In a nutshell it is why I eventually became Orthodox...I saw that its truth claims if lived consistently produced some pretty amazing people all throughout history, some practically stepping out like someone from the pages of scripture...like St. Mary of Egypt. And the theology I found associated with her and those like here was much like the River of Fire essay linked above...which at the time provided for me an amazing new way to relate to Scripture and to Christians and Christianity. God was no longer my enemy convinced by a trick of law to let me go untormented for eternity. So swell of Him. Rather it was more like welcome to the hospital lets work on getting you well...and while you are here be kind to the other patients...some are so much sicker than they know.
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4 years ago ::
Nov 10, 2008 - 12:36AM
#7
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Seraphim,
The appropriate forum for challenging or disagreeing with maltheism is the Discuss New Religious Movements Forum. This forum is for maltheist and maltheist sympathizers to talk with one another. We also welcome non-judgmental questions.
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