'Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus' in relation to Western and Eastern Saints

Both the East and West have a history of Saints with prodigious miracles, incorruptibles, etc. How can this be possible, when the very doctrine of Grace differs in the Eastern and Western Churches? How can this be possible, when only there is only One Church that is truly Catholic and Apostolic? How does that relate with Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus? Maybe I'm just being too legalistic, I know that God looks at your heart first and foremost (1 Samuel 16:7), but this is very troubling, and in some ways reminds me of Protestant theology. (In other words, God will still give Grace to those in Churches that are outside of the True Church.) I'd like to have discussion on this matter.

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They’re not saints and their miracles aren’t from God

Bible:
RCC:
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Imagine being so indoctrinated that you honestly believe this.

imagine being such a heretic that you think sainthood is possible outside of the body of christ

Utter stupidity. Judge by the fruits and it's damn obvious that there have been saints in both the Catholic Church and in the Orthodox Church despite the schism. There is no way so many miracles and good works—and such profound ones—could come from Satan.

Do the Eastern Orthodox even believe in no salvation outside the Church? I've been reading quite a bit of the Church Fathers lately and, while my knowledge of patristics is still very limited, it seems like only the western Fathers ever said anything along the lines of that. Some of the eastern Fathers, such as St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory the Theologian, even appear to say things in contradiction to it.

If I give my honest thought it will cause a shitshow like everytime I do, and I risk getting banned anyway.
I will solely say that if someone does not believe in Christ (the true Christ, the One Who is really Triune and really Incarnate), they can receive no sanctifying grace. The "miracles" of such people may be of God, but if they do not lead anyone to the Church then either the person conveying this "miracle" has messed up, or, more likely, such "miracles" come from the devil with the intention to sow confusion and make unclear where the Church lies.

See Acts 19:11-17:

But if someone is dogmatically correct about Who Jesus is, I think that such miracles are possible, and even salvation (although ideally one should enter communion with the canonical bishops so that they can directly receive the sacraments). See Mark 9:38-41:

The Western Fathers are Orthodox too.
No one, East or West, denies that there is no salvation outside the Church. The issue is to define where the boundaries of the Church are.

I've seen similar happenings, too.
Miracles.
Prophecies that speak of the same things, but mirrored.
Exiled russian theologians just so happening to intersect with the Ressourcement movement(itself something born out of multiple catholic theologians independently having similar theological ideas) that was appearing in the same cities they were activating in, which would flourish, and critically influence Vatican II for the better.

In my opinion, i don't think Christ abandoned either of the ancient Churches, and all these signs of grace and prophecy all seems to point to some massive endgame He is planning, that will be more glorious than we can imagine.

Both cannot be right, one will give sway to the other. My bet is on the Church with Cephas.

quit giving me these idiotic false dichotomies, you're not interested in discussion here, you only seem to care about about having the last word

that's not what divine simplicity says, it is pointing how exactly the Father, in His Person-hood, as the Creator is, which is beyond all existence.

I have no idea how you manage to present this silly straw-man argument, if you're this mistaken about the term then you should really research it more before trying to attack it.

They don’t even have the same beliefs these churches have totally different views on the nature of the Godhead. To say people can be saved in both churches is ridiculous, because both churches have devoted members? Are protestants also saved if they do “miracles”? Are copts saved? Muslims have had pious members that did good deeds, can you find salvation in allah instead of christ? This ecumenism makes no sense it’s the same tier as liberals who say “all religions lead to the same truth” albeit at a lesser extent.

I haven’t presented you with any false dichotomies. This has just been the debate for the last 1000 years. If God is personal that means there is some aspect of Him that we humans can know, that we can have a relationship with. His energies.

Jesus Christ.

So when God appeared on the Old Testament to Moses that was…?

You might find this book interesting:
orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/status.aspx

God. We do not know what Moses saw, but Scripture says "it was God's back", because any direct exposure to God would be death. The patristics argue Moses saw a vision of Christ, or a Theophany (same with Adam and Eve).

If you portend that God is not unknowable, then what is the point of the Son, friend? Do you not know nobody can come to the Father except through the Son? If God, the Father, is knowable, than by your logic, Christ is superfluous.

Apologies for the intrusion on the debate here, but I don't think it's fair the way you're dismissing your opponent by saying he's just "trying to get the last word in", when there is obviously a theological debate here that does actually exist keeping the churches divided. Insisting that its illusury when even top level scholars disagree is a bit disingenuous.

What you're saying about The Father, is roughly what an Orthodox might say about the essence of God. The thing is that this position then requires The Son and The Holy Spirit to 'fill in the gaps' that the energies of God are meant to explain in Orthodoxy, and that leads to certain implications and explanations of things that the Orthodox disagree with. But to imply that the Orthodox are the ones splitting up the Trinity is a complete misrepresentation of the Orthodox position.

There is a reason the user you're debating is highlighting the things he's highlighting, so maybe check out some other resources explaining the issue in a bit more detail before casting judgement on him:
youtu.be/IrpTSgPhTXQ
youtu.be/yx0khK_Qe1w
youtu.be/P3hprH0oc_I
youtu.be/uxMKS9DCjG8

It doesn't "fill in the gaps", we say that these are qualities of the Son, and the Holy Spirit in their Personhood.

Which is taken care of by the fact that the Trinity is still preserved in the: 3 persons - One God formula.

I'm implying that -user- is splitting up the Trinity by his arguments against the Catholic position, I'm not actually arguing against the Orthodox position if you care to re-read the line of posts.

My argument is apologetic.

figured

But its also in the bible where Jesus grants St Peter the responsibility to guide his first church, as a place for his followers to gather and learn.
The church doesn't really contradict the bible in any way.

The only way that or the Transfiguration makes sense is in that Moses or the apostles actually saw God's uncreated energies. Not his "direct" uncreated essence but his uncreated energies.

Christ is God so Christ's essence incommunicable just as God's essence is incommunicable. The Orthodox position on the Trinity is that it is incommunicable with us in essence but it's energies can dwell within us. Christ's energies are communicable to us.

Let's stick to arguments here.

What exactly is there about the Transfiguration that needs to "make sense"? The three Apostles' saw Christ in another form, in the middle of the Prophets, possibly in their heavenly spiritual form.

This entire argument is just completely alien to me, and to the rest of the West, what is there about the Transfiguration that needs explanation?

We're speaking different languages here, this is what happens when you try to shove a foreign theology onto another Christian.

Sure, Jay Dyer is untrustworthy because he has gone through many religious conversions (atheist -> calvinist -> catholic -> orthodox) in addition to selling "the esoteric satanic messages of Nickelodeons' Good Burger".

I wouldn't trust the guy as a source for Theology, and it's hypocritical how he castigates Catholic theology for arguing through Greek Philosophy when he himself seems to go through religion like pairs of pants.

Why do you think I put it in quotes? The point is that this is the Orthodox perspective on that particular issue. The 'gaps' are there for both; Catholics fill them with the rest of the Trinity, the Orthodox have a stricter interpretation of the roles each of the persons in the Trinity play, and they can do that because they 'fill-the-gaps' with the energies of God. You intentionally missing the point here suggests you're not interested in debating in good faith.

depending either on divine simplicity or the E/E distinction, which is what the entire debate is literally about. Do you think the Orthodox disagree with 3 persons, 1 God? because it seems like you've implied that multiple times now.

The user was obviously trying to communicate the Orthodox position though, surely you recognized that. I don't see the need to sneakily strawman the entire East/West theological divide in a thread about how the two overlap, just because some user might've been hasty in articulating the theological issues at play.

Not many people have that man's level of autism to actually research and articulate these theological issues to the masses in English. Most of what he does is just cite and summarize the sayings of saints and church fathers that can be easily referenced anyway, but would take much longer to read than just watching a few youtube videos. If you have a problem with the works of saints and church fathers however, then I don't know what to tell you.

I don't like getting into this specific debate because it's super technical and requires a lot of niche prerequisite knowledge from everybody, but it's disingenuous when people misrepresent the debate entirely.

You realize that's actually a strong argument in favor of him knowing what he's talking about, right? it's not like he changes religions every week. He literally spent a decade devoutly studying each Catholicism and Orthodoxy. That's more than can be said for most practicing Catholics and Orthodox that barely ever glance at the source material of their faith. Contrary to popular belief, choosing your particular brand of religion isn't always based purely on random subjective opinions that can be changed on a whim. Studying the intricacies of Christian doctrine and church history to try and understand the most reliable set of beliefs is barely something that can be done in a lifetime, nevermind a couple years like you seem to be implying you to want people to do.

Also, I don't think Jay ever claimed to be an atheist at any point in time. But if you have a citation to the contrary, feel free to bring it up.

The dude has been Orthodox for about ten years lolololol.

Besides most people on this board have been through some kind of conversion.

The point from the West, is that isn't an issue, nor did anyone ever think it was an issue. It's like a Mormon butting into a Thomistic conference with some stuff from their Gospel, all you'd get is some confused stares.

Fact of the matter is, for all the Orthodox whining about Scholastic theology, Palamist theology is its own beast with its own peculiarities that nobody in the West has ever really considered. That the Orthodox uses it to justify calling Catholics heretics is their own fault.

There's no "point" to miss here, the argument was an Orthodox trying to poke holes into Catholic theology using Orthodox theological auspices, and the contentions comes not from anything in the Catholic theology, but from the Orthodox. Nobody in the West has treated Palamist theology seriously, and try as I might, I can't even find post-schism Saints or theologians even talk about it.

Not at all, but it's obvious there has been a few hundreds years worth of theological innovation among the Orthodox, and all we can do is try to mash two theologies together.

All I keep hearing over and over is "uh excuse me, ackshully, you guys dont believe in the trinity because of energies", and nobody in the West even knows the argument!

This is the fruit Dyer lays at your feet, even more cause to contention among the apostolic Churches.

That you seem to exclusively receive this theology through the cypher of Dyer alone is concerning, how about any other modern Orthodox theologian willing to debate about the East/West differences?

Catholicism doesnt deny orthodox can have grace and affirms they have a valid priesthood, it's more of a problem for orthodox who have to say they were demonic or in prelest

Not at all. I don't respect a man who claimed to be Catholic and became a schismatic.

Dyer knows more core Roman Catholic theology than 99% of registered Catholics and that's a fact. Not an opinion but a fact. You yourself said no one in the West have heard of the issue.

Vladimir Lossky is a good one to explain this distinction. Or you could just go back to Palamas and his debate with Barlaam.

Orthodox ecumenist bishops are spreading the false teaching that we shouldn't be making converts to Orthodoxy and that is why there is not much dialogue. This goes against the lives of the saints who died to make converts to the faith.

This is similar to someone screeching "ortholarp" or "larpodox". I try to approach these discussions with charity and a Christian attitude which is what I recommend you do as well. Sneering condescension will really get you nowhere in these discussions as it doesn't advance your point. Perhaps no one has approached Palamas seriously as Orthodoxy really has had little presence in the West until recently.

That really isn't saying much, considering the fact that the RCC has effectively embraced every other religion under the sun as being valid, making it practically equivalent to Hindu doctrine now. If you guys actually cared about re-unification between the East and West, you wouldn't just flat out dismiss the concerns of the East by saying "it's all like totally cool man", and pretending like the principles of the East aren't actual barriers to unification. The East isn't going to overturn it's entire history just to join the West with all its questionable fruits.

And you guys using your Roman dogmatics to complain about the Orthodox being schismatics is your own fault as well (despite the fact that the bishop of Rome single-handedly chose to excommunicate all the other bishops during the schism). Saying "it's your own fault!" literally adds nothing to the conversation.

Now now, don't be coy, there's been just as much (if not arguably more) "theological innovation" in the West as well. At least the Orthodox can root it's E/E distinction back to the occurrence of the term "energeia" in the actual NT which implies such a distinction, and was recognized by St John of Damascus way before St. Palamas came around. The west on the other hand, chose to put most of its eggs in the Augustine/Aquinas basket, nevermind the craziness that was Vatican II or the notorious Papal Infallibility council:
orthodoxchristianity.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=14:articles&id=39:the-vatican-dogma

Did you miss the whole part about him basically just regurgitating stuff the saints, councils, and church fathers said? How is that "Dyer alone"? I've read a lot of the source material he cites, and it basically just restates the same stuff he says, just more eloquently. 'Aristotle East and West' is particularly good in that regard, but of course you're probably not interested in learning about opposing viewpoints anyway.

Literally every Orthodox priest/monk/theologian talks about the East/West differences. The differences are part of most (if not all) the Orthodox Catechisms out there ffs. Just look here:
orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/inq_western.aspx
orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/inq_rc.aspx

If you're referring specifically to the Energy/Essence distinction however, that's not talked about as much because it's a niche topic, and it's incompatibility with the West usually only comes up in the context of the Filioque anyway. Plus, there are several other issues with Western doctrine that are more relevant for perspective converts and followers than the E/E distinction, thus putting the whole issue in the back seat in most materials about Orthodoxy.

And I could say I don't respect heretics that officially enshrined an office for false prophets under the guise of succeeding St. Peter. See how that works? What are you even doing in a thread about East/West unification if your only goal just is to continue flinging poo at the other side?

Are you guys still derailing into Filioque debates?

The whole point of us humans having minds is we can seek the truth, because we are to seek God, and God is the truth. If God is not knowable, you are really saying that in the final equation we were not meant to seek God. That this is incorrect is obvious from a spiritual point of view.

This is a problem for you too ordodox, because in reality you really are holding the same position, just a weaker version. "We can't know God but we can know his energies". Now unless i'm mistaken and "energies" are actually a trivial distinction, you too have the problem of our minds not really made to seek God, but only his energies. And i'm no master of the essence energy distinction, honestly I don't understand it at all, but I do know that it must be possible to know God, else everything becomes absurd.

user, I…

We do know God through his energies, that’s the only way he interacts with us. Through energies we have a relationship with God despite not knowing his core essence. God in essence transcends all logical categories we try to put Him in.

Here is a metaphor which might help. Say I kiss my hypothetical wife. She may know nothing of my essences. I am just communicating energies to her there, but we are still capable of having a relationship. Now that’s a little different because it’s about two humans. We are capable of having a relationship with God though through his energies. That’s the Orthodox position anyways.

Jesus clearly says you can even do miracles in his name but still go to Hell. As for the Catholic doctrine, it is clear schismatics go to hell, unless they are joined to the Catholic church before their death.

The same way material heretics like st Paul vi, st JP 2 became saints: ignorance and final repentance

Good job BTFOing that strawman, you really showed me

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Aquinas btfos Turks for no reason.

This is precisely what I don't want to believe unless I absolutely have to, it is tantamount to saying God is brute fact (like the way the atheists say the world is brute fact), and only communicates through a part of himself that is fashioned in order exposed so we can see, but himself is indescribable by order. That there is a part of God outside of reason, and he has to dip into reason so that he can talk with us.

As in some parts of God are illogical and unordered. God is logos, God is word, God is order, and yet there is an unordered, unworded, unlogos part of God? I will admit, such a thing is not impossible - one could even imagine these parts merely being written in another language, though one would question why God would hide himself behind a second like that, or that such a thing simply ends up being necessary in order to exist - but I refuse to believe it (unless I have to). God cannot be disordered or illogical.

Actually I take that back - it is impossible. You cannot with your reason make an unerred connection with something unreasonable. if there is in principal not even a single possible way to apprehend by reason something without error, then it is by definition impossible.

I mean I could say something like - God made the world so it is ordered, but he didn't make himself, so he himself is not ordered and exists in part outside of order, which is plausible sounding - but you cannot logically arrive to that conclusion no matter how it sounds. The moment you exit logic, you lose, that's how logic works.

We in our imperfection fail to grasp the perfect order.

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That's not what it implies. What the unknowable Essence suggests, is closer to the idea of incompleteness in mathematics:
perrymarshall.com/articles/religion/godels-incompleteness-theorem/

In other words, our inability to fully comprehend God is a result of the limited human faculties at our disposal, the same way we can't legitimately visualize infinity or 4-dimensional space, not some illogical property of God, or God intentionally hiding himself.

Logic is not a foundation. It is a tool. It requires fundamental presuppositions.

I'm not saying God's existence is illogical, you can absolutely support God's existence with logic. God's essence though exists outside of time and space, how could beings such as we then see God's essence? Don't make logic an idol.

Thats why we contact His energies not His essence.

Funny that he said a circle, I have dealt with very, very similar subjects in one of my stranger attempts to prove God's existence, where nothing can be considered true without an observer to think it true - as no mind can in principal logically arrive at such a conclusion. To think of something as being true outside of observation, you would have to use your mind to try to imagine something as being true without an observer, when your mind is itself an observer. It is impossible, you cannot mentally observe something that is not mentally observed. Therefor you cannot in principal conceive of something existing without an observer as being rational - because there is not even a single way to rationally reach that conclusion, so it is what is known as "impossible" - for there is no possible way to logically make that connection. Nothing impossible exists in this world, so there can be no non observed things that exist, as unobserved things are irrational objects. Therefore seeing that our rational minds did not always exist during times when there were things that clearly did exist, and true propositions were to be had when we were not around to observe them, there must be a prime observer mind who has always observed everything to rationally observe that things exist, necessarily, in order for them locally speaking to have existed, and this mind is what we call God. I even went so far as to think that God observes his own existence, as all minds observe that they exist - I think therefor I am. I recognized that even God's perspective must be observed by a greater circle/perspective that contains it, so I tried to say that it precisely contains/observes itself, and just simply does exist.

Seemingly the only way out would be to say that logic and truth is a mind independent affair, however this is not possible, for you would have to imagine logic existing outside of a mind, but that is impossible to do, because you must use your mind to imagine it being outside of a mind, which is the same self contradiction. Thank you for that, I liked that thought experiment.

...

Theres a much simpler thing to consider. How can we comprehend an eternal essence which transcends time and space? How could we know that personally? You're making this into quantum physics when it's really a lot more basic than that.

it is utter chicken feed to imagine a mind that exists outside time and space - because minds can easily exist outside of time and space. First of all what is a mind? Well a mind is something that intends, for example you can intend to stick your arm out, and that in some way ultimately is caused by your mind. You can stick your hand on a stove and your body will automatically recoil whether you intended it or not, this is not due to your mind, but is your bodies natural reaction.

Imagine this, your mind is hooked up to a virtual world where there was nothing in it. Just black. Even though there is nothing in that virtual world, your mind could still intend things, and is capable of thought.

What about time? Well time is just change, and it's entirely possible to imagine a mind that does not change, and is just there frozen like that forever. Congratulations, you have imagined a mind existing outside of spacetime, and proven that it is entirely possible that the mind is non-physical.

Thinkin about it that's probably what hell is like actually. Black as there is no space of which to see, painful like there is a feeling of fire all over, horrifying, as there is the visions of terrifying demons in this darkness to haunt you, and the worm of regret in your mind that never dies - and it all never, ever changes.

Read

Wow, look at this trashfire of a thread. To actually answer OP's question:
There have been numerous Saints that have been venerated and shared post-Schism by the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. Some examples include:

And on and on it goes. Not to mention Eastern Catholics are allowed to venerate the Orthodox Saints of their Sister Church. You will find icons of St. Seraphim of Sarov alongside St. Francis of Assisi in a Russian Catholic Church, for example. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Western Orthodox doing this with post-Schism Roman Catholic Saints, though I do have a book by Helene Iswolsky titled "Light Before Dusk" where she talks about how many Orthodox in France during her lifetime venerated St. Theresa of Lisieux and that she was an extremely popular Saint in Russia while she was still living.

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Her understanding of God and his grace always seemed pretty eastern to me

I think the orthodox just goofed into the correct, catholic understanding

;)

I'd like to add something to your post, user. Eastern Catholics also can venerate Saint Isaac the Syrian, especially in the Maronite Church, as he was a Syriac, close to us.

What denomination are you?

I think you’re trying to reduce God to a worldly entity.