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Ok here's my weird but wonderful question, Life and man has evolved so much from when the Bible was written why has god not sent signs and adapted our faith to cater for the world we are living in today
Answer to Question 571 Well firstly I don't believe in the evolution of man and secondly God has adapted our faith. If we consider that the first faith in God was what God revealed to the Jews in the Old testament which was a preparation for mankind to accept a bigger truth with the coming of Christ. The faith changed again with the coming of the Holy Spirit which enlightened man even further. But a faith to be true means that it is unchangable and steadfast. We cannot change what to believe just to please our own ideas of what a faith should be. That is what the Catholic Church did and even passed a new dogma saying that every new council is above the previous councils and has the authority to dismiss with the decisions and dogmas of previous centuries. In other words kofkoun kai rafkoun din pistin tous opos theloun. We on the other hand have remained steadfast in the faith but we have not stood motionless. Throughout the centuries the faith has remained steadfast but our approach to the world and modern ideas have changed in many areas. One such change is our approach to engaged couples. In the not too distant past it was unthinkable for them to have premarital sex and for the church to bless their marriage without confession. Today we turn a blind eye that people live together before marriage and that most couples (In Cyprus at least) come to their wedding with a baby in hand.
Same member And that is exactly what I'm talking about, this was not the word of God but the word of the Church, you turn a blind eye because you have no choice, mans mental state is so different today, the church's fill up every Sunday and nothing is absorbing through people's heads, they leave the Church and still go back to being what society has made them to be and not our faith, The word of God is disappearing because he is not showing us any signs that he is still with us
Reply Yes but what you need to understand is that these changes are not the faith, they are not dogmas. There are many rules that we must follow, but they are not rules that if we break them we must be punished for it. The rules or canons of the Orthodox Church are better understood as guildlines which if followed will lead us on the straight and narrow road. Our main concern is not if someone breaks one of these rules, but that each person finds salvation. We teach love and forgiveness and punishing is simply not our way. We cannot force people to live contrary to the spirit of the world and so we introduce what we call in the church "Economia" a leniency or dispensation that will help the person with living in modern society while still maintaining him/her within the protection of the church. Our role as priests is pastoral and not judge, we understand that people are weak and fall into error and so don't burden them further with rules they cannot keep. There is a lot more to be said on this subject but I think it would be better served in a separate post just on this subject. That doesn't mean I'm trying to get out of answering, there are many branches to your question and it would take more than today to answer them in full.
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