Is there anyone here from the Eastern Orthodox church?

IM not eastern orthodox but what's the question.

Andrieu_Jaimes said:

Hey! It isn't a question of theology, more of a question of experience from someone from that tradition.

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Welcome to the site.
How can I help you?

I have been moved by postings to wonder how many belieers are convinced of "ologies" being important in Kingdome teachings? In the next age, that is eternity after this ag?

There will be no denominations, come the Kingdom, as there were none labeling our Lord and Savior. It makes me wonder, yup, what the fuss?

Welcome again and thank you for sharing a bit about yourself.
I love your questions.

Andrieu_Jaimes said:

1. What does theosis look like to you? How does this concept affect you personally on a day-to-day basis?

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Theosis for me is basically The Kingdom of God in me which makes this fallen world with all its tragedies and suffering into a lighter place where i am grateful for the presence of God in everything around me and i look forward to see Him in the next.
To relate this to a more Protestant version, i could say that "I am saved now". I don't know about tomorrow or the future, but i am good now and this is how i live my life. One day a time, grateful for today and ready for anything for tomorrow with God in my heart.

Andrieu_Jaimes said:

2. How do you experience participation in God’s uncreated energies? How does this shape your prayer life, your walk with God, and the way you experience Him?

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God's uncreated energies to me are when He intervenes in the form of Miracles to show us that we are not alone in this fallen world. So because of this, my walk with God is even more joyful and hopeful. Short of touching Him, i am completely in love with Him and i am in His hands. I have surrendered all because i came with nothing and i will leave with nothing. All i got in this journey is Him and His creation where He reminds me daily of His presence.
So prayer for me is not something i set aside on a schedule on my calendar. Prayer is every moment because everything is connected to God so it's a moment of gratefulness for everything throughout the day, even when i have lunch at the cafeteria. I do my cross in the chest and say THANK YOU for this lunch. Even at work when i talk about work-related stuff and an opportunity comes up where people go a bit off-topic from the project and say things like "we are irreplicable in what we're doing in this project" i remind them "we are all replaceable. Only God is irreplaceable"
There are also prayers related to healings, signs and lightening the burdens of others, family or myself. Because we will have those moments too so i go to Him to lighten my burdens. And He does.

Andrieu_Jaimes said:

Lutherans believe in justification by faith in Christ alone. We see good works, the sacraments, and sanctification as the fruits of justification, but not as something that contributes to or maintains it. How do you view this?

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The question of Salvation is always a bit difficult to discuss because it's very personal for everyone.
To me it's the meaning of life.

First when i see another Christian who loves God with all his heart and mind but believes in Faith Alone to go to Heaven, i am happy for him and i don't want to say anything else. He is basically the same as me, but he is at peace because of a reward in the future and i am at peace because i got to know Christ now. That's the only difference. We are essentially at the same destination but we came at it from different paths.

Secondly, no amount of work makes me think that i will go to Heaven. Zero. I am, like i said, in the hands of God. I have surrendered. So there is nothing i can do on my own to get in-person fellowship with Him in Heaven.
This is why i don't think about the future. I think of now and this moment. Now i am almost in Heaven with Him because of the Kingdom of God in my heart and this is as close to Heaven as i can get. If He has mercy on me later then i hope to be in bliss with a vague memory of the past as Revelation says in Revelation 21:4.

Third. Forgiveness. When someone wants to convert you by force (psychological or physical) into their version of Salvation, then forgive them. The only thing you have control of is your love of God which you need to be ready to die for. God gave everyone free-will, so ultimately i respect their free-will and i will be ready to die for mine and God will sort it out in the end.

I could say more but i'll leave it at this for now.
Thank you for joining this site and God bless you.

Andrieu_Jaimes said:

Hello! I've always wanted to speak to someone from Eastern Orthodoxy. I live in a place where the nearest EO church is over an hour drive away and I have personally never encountered someone from this tradition. If you're from EO and don't mind answering some friendly questions, feel free to post.

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I'm Pentecostal so I don't really have a horse in this race. But howdy anyway, and welcome to the forum.

Andrieu_Jaimes said:

I understand that I'm not going to reach God through human reason alone, but instead I must find His will through humility, repentance, and prayer. There is almost a humorous level of irony in my thinking here, but I digress. The conundrum that I often face is that the great mercies of God, particularly those that apply to soteriology as a whole, are something that should be lived and experienced not only through understanding but also in how we live and how we treat others. What I often do instead is focus entirely on exhaustive explanations. Sometimes I get caught up on particulars because I have this strong desire to know some of the more nuanced topics definitively.

To come around to what I am getting at here, it is my understanding that the Orthodox Church understands God through apophatic means and that this is somehow linked to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone. I can at least understand this on a surface level, but I don't understand how this relieves someone of the scholastic obsessiveness that those with my particular theological leanings often fall into. This is kind of a difficult question and kind of a nuanced one. Do you have any comment here?

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The best way I can describe this is the feeling of love.
Many poets have tried to describe what’s it like to fall in love, but you don’t really experience it until it happens to you.
This is also coming from someone like me who’s very analytical in nature and very hands on. I learn by doing, seeing and hearing first , then I read about the topic.

So when I tried to analyze the details of Gods mysteries many years ago, there was a point where I would say that i was losing my mind. And it’s at that point where I also surrendered in trying to know the mind of God and His mysteries.
We can’t know it and this is done on purpose. God gives us senses to tell us who He is but not so we can know of How He does the things He does. Those are mysteries beyond our comprehension so you have to surrender the analytical part. Not needed in a loving relationship.

This is the apophatic part. We are being honest with ourselves basically and who we are. We are His Creation and we will never know His knowledge or mind and if you relate this to your family members, even when you love your kids and wife with all your heart, you don’t get into their mind about everything. No, you simply love and trust and you get loved and trusted in return. Anything above that turns into a controlling relationship as opposed to a loving relationship. You have given them your heart, you are vulnerable but you’re also at the outmost joy, peace, trust, comfort and I would say even bliss to a certain degree.

However the way anyone learns is different and like i said above about love, you can't really understand it until it happens to you. So in order to surrender to God you may have to take the journey and try to analyze everything in nature and in the Bible so you can experience what's that like when to take it to the maximum degree and then you'll surrender completely after that journey. This can take many years.
In a way, since i was a child i had always wished that knowledge should be passed down genetically from mother and father to the child so you can avoid the mistakes they made but this is how we're build in God's wisdom for a reason.

I really appreciate the Orthodox views because they are so consistent. I listen to Orthodox priest all the time and recite the Jesus prayer.