What do you believe?
Being an Orthodox Christian means having right faith or correct belief, which is believing in what is really true. As the Orthodox Church, we share the same beliefs together in our time that our Orthodox Christian ancestors believed around the world in every generation since the time of Jesus Christ and His Holy Apostles.
We express what we believe through doctrines or dogmas. What is the purpose of dogma? Since our hearts are darkened and we require healing, we do not know or see clearly. The dogmas of the Church are like signs or lanterns along the Way of Life. If you can see the sign pointing to the correct direction, you can stay on the Way. Dogmas cannot explain a Mystery, but they keep you on the Way of Mystery. They show you the Way toward healing and transformation while preventing you from drifting off the road or outright taking a wrong turn down a treacherous road to a poisonous end.
After Holy Pentecost, the Church continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers (Acts 2.42, NKJV). Holding to the teachings of the Apostles is still central to our unity. As these doctrines unify us, they also create division between those of us who hold to the Truth and those who reject it. One who does not hold to the Orthodox Faith may wish to water down the Apostolic teaching in order to manufacture a kind of superficial unity, but this does not build a true, deep unity of Faith. You may hear someone say something like this: “What really matters is that we all have faith, or that we believe in God, or that we believe in Jesus, or that we believe in loving others, or that our paths help us find a sense of self-fulfillment and peace. Let’s focus on what we have in common, not what separates us.” Statements like this minimize the importance of doctrine and suggest that unity can be achieved by ignoring the wide difference between what is true and real and what is false and imaginary. Real unity is never created by compromising Truth or ignoring it for the sake of a thin, shallow unity. Real unity is created by rejecting untrue beliefs in order to embrace the Truth and by calling people from darkness to Light, and receiving them into the Truth.
In medicine, physicians know how to correctly diagnosis and treat a patients in order to restore health. Medical doctors distinguish between effective treatment options and ineffective treatment options to heal particular diseases. A competent physician would not say to a patient, “There are many different medicines in the world. It doesn’t matter exactly what your disease is or which medicine you take. What matters is that it is all medicine and medicine works. Let’s focus on what makes the different medicines the same, not what makes them different.” Such a view of medicine that minimizes the tremendous difference among the many different types of medications, and how they individually work with relation to particular ailments, would have tragic consequences. These are not matters of opinion, but of truth and error.
The dogmas of the Church are not opinions, but the objective Truth revealed by God Himself to His Church, which He established as the pillar and ground of Truth. We hold to what we know to be objectively True, not what we think is true, feel like is true, or seems apparently true. Since the Holy Spirit indwells and guides the Holy Orthodox Church, the doctrines of the Church do not change or develop over time, although the same teachings may be expressed with different words and explanations in different times and places in history. Across the millennia, the whole Church has affirmed the Apostles’ teachings. Even more, the Saints who have lived in different places and times down through the centuries have confirmed the truth of these doctrines. So, the dogmas we hold today have been consistently confirmed by the experience of those Fathers and Mothers who, having purified their hearts, have been taught by the Holy Spirit through prayer.
Each of us believes in the same doctrines, but just because someone agrees that certain doctrines are true does not mean that he is living the spiritual Way which those doctrines point toward. Rational belief is not enough. As St. James wrote, You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! (James 2.19). Even the evil bodiless powers know that certain doctrines are objectively true, but they do not have real faith. They know that God exists – and fear the Source of Love – but they do not believe in God. That is, they do not follow God or obey Him. We believe in God with our hearts, trust in what He has revealed to us, and live according to His instructions. The proof of real faith is seen in how each person carries out his or her daily life.
On the one hand, hold to Apostle’s teachings without compromise. Do not fall into relativism, the incorrect notion that Truth and one’s spiritual path is just a matter of individual opinion and perspective. On the other hand, be aware of the other extreme, a rigid fundamentalism that dogmatizes a particular opinion when, in fact, a range of acceptable pious views exist within the Church. If God has not revealed something clearly and the Church has not been inspired by the Holy Spirit to define a doctrine regarding the matter, do not presume that you and those who agree with your opinion possess the ability to speak with authority on the matter. The Church has been given theology, which is expressed in dogma. Be careful not to confuse philosophy of the rational mind with the theology revealed to the heart. Hold to the dogmas which we know instead of attempting to further rationally speculate, philosophically guessing, regarding what we do not know with certainty.
The opposite of Orthodoxy (correct belief) is heresy. Heresy is a false opinion. A heretic, then, is one who makes the choice to embrace his own false opinion instead of holding to the Truth revealed to the Holy Orthodox Church, preserved by our ancestors, and passed down whole and undefiled to us. A heretic does remain on the Way of healing and transformation that leads to salvation in Christ. Instead, he deceptively presents his own philosophical speculations as true theology. The heretic egotistically sets himself up as the authority of Truth and refuses to be taught and corrected, even when the whole Church speaks with one voice.
If I presented a glass of water before you and told you that the water was filtered and pure, except for a single drop of sewage, would you want to drink the water in the glass? No. That would be gross – and dangerous. A very small amount of harmful bacteria would spoil the whole container. Like a little bacteria introduced to water, the effect of heresy can grow. Throughout history, the Church has strongly condemned heresy and clearly expressed the difference between the unchanging Truth of God and the false opinions of heretics. The Fathers of the Church knew that what may seem like an insignificant matter can be dangerous, pointing people down a treacherous path harmful to their spiritual health. A false teaching about the nature of God, for example, can lead you to having a false view of yourself, your diagnosis, your treatment, your purpose in the world, your personal potential, your relationship with other people, and your eternal salvation. Furthermore, since heretics often spread their opinions and convince others to follow them, heresy may lead one to break from the Church. Ensure that you hold to entire Apostolic Tradition. If you hold to most of the Truth, but accept a small error, that error may make a big difference in what you believe and how you live. The dogmas of the Holy Orthodox Church lead to spiritual Life. Heresy leads to spiritual sickness, chaos, and death.
The danger of false teaching extends beyond the Church to the many other religions and ideologies around us. We certainly do find elements of truth in other belief systems, but the problem with those religions and ideologies is not the truth they contain, but the errors they contain. Those false teachings lead people away from the true God and the healing path of salvation. They misrepresent the purpose and potential of the human person and, rather than leading to the Divine Physician and His Hospital, they provide an incorrect diagnosis and ineffective treatment to heal our core spiritual problems.
Hold to the teachings of Christ and His Church. Avoid falling into the delusion that your perception of Truth is greater than those to whom God has revealed it. Pride can cause you to develop too high of an opinion of your own ability to individually discern Truth with either your own rational mind or with your feelings, apart from the Holy Orthodox Church. If you discover that you have been holding onto an opinion or view that contradicts the mindset (phronema) and teaching of the Church, repent. Be humble and teachable. Learn the Truth, embrace it, and live according to it. This is the Way of Life.
When you say, I am Orthodox, you declare that you hold to the Orthodox Faith. Learn the doctrines of the Holy Orthodox Church and keep them in your mind and in your heart. Live them through your action. Teach them to others so that the people around you may know the Living Christ. Truth is a loving Light that draws men and women out of the darkness of ignorance and death to the true God, the One Who loves them and offers them the fullness of Life. As Christ Himself said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10.10, NKJV).
Read: Ephesians 4.11-16; Galatians 1.8-9; 1 Corinthians 3.18-23; 1 Timothy 3.15; 2 Peter 2; Romans 1.16-32
Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees
