Quote:
Originally Posted by antonyh
We have talked on this thread about the beauty of God's unconditional pardon in Justification, but the other side of that is the discussion of sin.
How do you view sin? Can you even begin to be Orthodox without saying you have been delivered by Christ from slavery to sin? What is the core of sinfulness?
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With all due respect to the Calvinists among us, this is heavy stuff that could bear some plain talk in contemporary English.
I have faced my "depravity," and it ain't a pretty sight. After years of trying, I know that I am powerless to atone for my lack of faith -- worse, my lack of love. Even though I have experienced the joy of spirtual healing, I still am aware of sinfulness in my heart of hearts. The hardest thing to do is to own my own s**t and to quit making excuses for it. An equally difficult spiritual task is to celebrate the goodness in myself as a gift from God and not a human accomplishment. I want so much to be the center of my own universe.
Having been brought up Catholic, I have never felt comfortable with the "justification" idiom, although I recognize that this is what I'm talking about. The only way I know how to solve this puzzle is by falling back on this verse in Chapter 2: "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me." It is the only way I can reconcile the war between sin and salvation that I experience at the core of my personhood.
If I am missing the point that Calvin was making, somebody please enlighten me.