https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=dbWRt2ck_So
In terms of faith plus works equals salvation. This is really where I think Orthodoxy has a lot to offer the West and has a lot to offer our thinking. Is that the Orthodox don’t view salvation so much in legal terms as happened in the West. And so this idea, for example, that, you know, like the Augustinian idea that man fell and that because of that we’re all sinners, like we’re sinners, we have a fall in nature. That type of thinking is just not part of Orthodoxy. It’s not that you can maybe not find it in very marginal text, but in the main thrust of Orthodox thinking, we don’t at all have the idea that man has a fall in nature. We have the idea that through sin of Adam came death, right? And then death became part of the human experience. And through death, right? That is death, that is the tendency that we have to move towards fragmentation and also the threat of the outside world on us to feel that threat that we’re in danger. That all those elements of death are bringing us to sin, right? That is, you know, you can imagine right away, it’s like you’re, you know, you think you’re not going to have enough food and therefore you are willing to do some certain things. You’re willing to hurt people. You’re willing to take from others because you feel that threat of death, okay? And also at the same time, a kind of flip side to that is the pride that can kind of be the weird flip side to the world of death, where on the other hand, you also think that you’re self-sufficient, that everything is owed to you, that you yourself are God, and so therefore you are willing to do things to others that are in line with that way of thinking, okay? So the dynamics of death bring about sin, okay? And so in a way, we’ve all sinned, right? We’ve all sinned because we’re caught in that. We are, you know, but we don’t have a sinful nature. The human nature, our human nature is still created in the image of God. And so there is a divine spark. Usually St. Gregory of Nyssa and the others were presented as this divine spark, which is there at the core, but it’s kind of dirtied. It’s been covered with too many layers. It’s been disfigured. The image has been disfigured, let’s say. So the image is still there, but it doesn’t resemble God as much as it did before. And so we need to restore its capacity to resemble God, okay? So that’s kind of how we see it. And so because of that, we just don’t… Salvation is just not seen as this idea that you need to do things in order to be saved. That is that, you know, this kind of this idea that God is holding a calculator, you know, and then he sees that you’re not doing right, you’re not doing the right thing, you know, it’s like, oh, here you are. You didn’t do the right thing. You’re bad. You sinned. You’re going to hell. And then, you know, the Protestant idea that because of that, you can’t do anything, so all you need is faith. And then because of faith and those that evil thing you did is kind of taken away and put in Christ, but then, you know, you go to heaven because of that. And then the idea or the idea or the other idea that you could somehow accumulate enough good works, enough you could do enough good things that God would say, you know, okay, well, let’s see, you know, that’s pretty good. Okay, so you’re okay. I’m going to accept you, right? There’s an arbitrariness to the whole process. The most Orthodox don’t see it that way. That is, sin is itself a fall, right? It takes you away from yourself. It makes you a slave to your passions. It makes you a slave to the outside world. It makes you think that certain things are God’s, right? You serve all these different things and you end up being pulled into all these different directions and you get, you’re scattered, you’re pulled apart, you know, you’re, and that’s what sin is, right? Sin is missing the mark, missing, it’s kind of shooting off in all these directions. So you’re fragmented, you’re scattered, you’re not a whole human being that is held together and can reflect the image of God, okay? And so that’s what sin does to you and that what it does to you, that’s the process of death itself, which leads to health, right? Which leads you to hell and it just happens, you know, it happens on its own. That’s what happens when you kind of, when you’re falling, okay? And so the idea is that through faith, right? Through trusting the invisible, through trusting, even though you can’t totally grasp it, you can’t see it by committing yourself to the infinite, by turning your head, right? Turning your head towards in the right direction, okay? And even though you’re still kind of sinning and you’re still doing the same, just basically turning your head in the right direction is the first step. And that also cannot happen without grace. So grace calls you, so there’s this calling, right? From the infinite is always calling you and you can feel that in you. You can feel this call to be better. You can feel this call to align yourself. If you’re attentive to it, the grace of God is working and calling you constantly to come into communion with God, right? To enter into communion with the infinite. And so this grace, which you have to answer by faith, that is turning your, you know, trusting that call, trusting the call which you receive, then that is the first step. And so the idea is that then there will be works. But the works aren’t seen as, okay, so now I’m Christian, I’m saved, and so now I need to do all these things to make God happy so that he won’t be angry with me anymore. It’s like, that’s not, I mean, you can represent it that way. That’s fine. But you have to be careful to see it only as a representation. A better way and a more, I would say, a more helpful way to see it is that you have faith, you turn yourself towards the infinite, and then in that faith, you’re going to move, right? Your works are going to be, are going to manifest where you’re looking. So your attention, your trust is on God, is on Christ. And so therefore, that’s what you’re going to start to become. And so that has to manifest itself in works. If there are no works, that is, if your attention is on Christ, and your attention and your trust is on Christ, but then you still hate your neighbor, you’re doing all these crazy things, you’re doing all these horrible things, then it means that you’re deluding yourself. You’re not actually trusting Christ. You’re not actually, you don’t have faith, right? And so faith has to manifest itself with works. There is no other way. It has to, because the works are you moving towards that call, right? And you can’t do it without the call. You can’t do it without grace, right? You can’t do it and you need faith, but then the works are necessary for you to become something else, you know? And the works themselves are you becoming something else. They’re the fruit of you becoming something else, okay? So I hope that that helps. It’s really not the same way of seeing it, but I think most people can kind of understand it, especially if you’ve been following my lectures for a while. And so hopefully that is enough to answer that question. All right.