42-a disputation
1. The answer to life, the universe, and everything. The problem is not knowing the question. Well, I posit that the ultimate question is "Why Am I here?". The thing that seperated us from animals is sentience, self awareness. We know that we are. This brute fact, the most brutal fact, demands the most basic question, "why?".
2. I propose that this question is the starting place of the Gospel. The Gospel begins"In the beginning, God created..", and the entirety of salvation history is the working out of the reason that God made that which was not God. I also propose that the answer is this: we are here to experience radical intimacy with God.
3. This radical intimacy is being made over into the likeness of Christ, the union of God and man. To be made into Christ's likeness we must learn perfect love, the nature of God. Love is self-donation. The exchange of selves in this radical intimacy demands the full surrender of our obedience to the Father, and participation in the self-sacrifice within the Godhead.
4. This participation takes place through Christ's death and ressurection. When we are baptized into Christ, into His Body, that inter-personal donation takes place, we enter into the life of the Trinity. That entrance into the Trinitarian existence culminates in our being made holy, where every barrier to our dwelling with God is removed.
5. Our being made holy is the purpose of the Church. In the Church, we are incorporated in Christ's body and sealed with the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, Who works that purging during our earthly lives.
6. Accepting these premises as true, the evangelistic mission is not merely to bring people to a particular belief about Christ, but to bring people into a relationship with Christ Himself. This relatationship should not be a spiritual connection only, but a physical absorption into Christ's earthly body, the Assembly He left behind.
7. Evangelism that focuses on calling people not only to Christ, but to the Church as well, is not a "Jesus and..." message, but a call to enjoy intimacy with the fullness of Christ. Proclamation to the lost world must not be to an invisible Savior only, but to a living Savior, present in the Sacraments He established.
8. Through the Sacraments, believers abide in Christ who abides in them. In the Church, we participate in the Divine life of the Trinity. In that life, we find the radical intimacy for which we were created. In Christ and His Church, we find the answer to that ultimate question.
2. I propose that this question is the starting place of the Gospel. The Gospel begins"In the beginning, God created..", and the entirety of salvation history is the working out of the reason that God made that which was not God. I also propose that the answer is this: we are here to experience radical intimacy with God.
3. This radical intimacy is being made over into the likeness of Christ, the union of God and man. To be made into Christ's likeness we must learn perfect love, the nature of God. Love is self-donation. The exchange of selves in this radical intimacy demands the full surrender of our obedience to the Father, and participation in the self-sacrifice within the Godhead.
4. This participation takes place through Christ's death and ressurection. When we are baptized into Christ, into His Body, that inter-personal donation takes place, we enter into the life of the Trinity. That entrance into the Trinitarian existence culminates in our being made holy, where every barrier to our dwelling with God is removed.
5. Our being made holy is the purpose of the Church. In the Church, we are incorporated in Christ's body and sealed with the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, Who works that purging during our earthly lives.
6. Accepting these premises as true, the evangelistic mission is not merely to bring people to a particular belief about Christ, but to bring people into a relationship with Christ Himself. This relatationship should not be a spiritual connection only, but a physical absorption into Christ's earthly body, the Assembly He left behind.
7. Evangelism that focuses on calling people not only to Christ, but to the Church as well, is not a "Jesus and..." message, but a call to enjoy intimacy with the fullness of Christ. Proclamation to the lost world must not be to an invisible Savior only, but to a living Savior, present in the Sacraments He established.
8. Through the Sacraments, believers abide in Christ who abides in them. In the Church, we participate in the Divine life of the Trinity. In that life, we find the radical intimacy for which we were created. In Christ and His Church, we find the answer to that ultimate question.
posted by Brother Makarias | 9:31 PM
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