Autonomy

“Unlike the spirit of modernity that tries to deny sin until the notion disappears completely, the tradition of the Eastern Church adheres to a very realistic view of the theological concept of sin. The Church sees sin as man’s desire for autonomy in relation to God and his rebellion against the order that God has established in nature and in all of creation. The Holy Fathers consider sin as a disease deeply rooted in human nature. If left untreated, it leads to a man’s spiritual death, and consequently, to eternal death.” (Metropolitan Seraphim Joanta)

“The fruit really is beautiful. It looks good to Eve, and what the serpent says seems reasonable to her “unaided reason,” so she decides to accept the interpretation he offers, and to act on his statement—an action which the serpent implies she can make completely independently. However, Eve doesn’t realize that in choosing the serpent’s interpretation, and in acting with her supposed autonomy, she in fact chooses communion with the serpent over, and instead of, communion with God and her husband.” (Dr. Mary S. Ford)

“So long as man lives egocentrically, anthropocentrically, autonomously, he places himself at the center and purpose of his own life. He believes that he can be perfected by his own efforts; defined by his own efforts; deified by his own efforts. This is the spirit of contemporary civilization, contemporary philosophy, contemporary politics: to create an even better world, even more just, but to do this autonomously, by oneself; to create a world which will have man at its center with no reference to God; with no acknowledgement that God is the source of all good. This is the fault that Adam committed, believing that, with only his own powers, he could become God, could complete himself. The fault of Adam is one that all humanistic creeds make throughout all the ages. They do not consider that communion with God is indispensable for the completion of man.” (Archimandrite George)

“Man refuses to see the world as a blessing from God, an actual fact of relationship and communion with Him. He uses the good things of the earth exclusively for the preservation and satisfaction of his individual self-sufficiency. Thus use of the world becomes the sphere in which individuals vie with one another for autonomous survival. The good things of the earth cease to be grounds for relationship and communion, and become objects of dispute and rivalry between individuals intent on preserving their biological existence. In this way, however, man’s relationship with the world necessarily leads to progressive corruption and death; it is a relationship which deadens life, since it identifies it with the individual survival which is subject to death. Man takes up the world so as to preserve in life his individual being, but the self-preservation of his individuality proves to be an inevitable process of decay, a death sentence.” (Christos Yannaras)

“…the true knowledge of yourself, which is so much preached about, is when you see God inside yourself. And the God inside you loves the One in another person, and the God inside you cries out to God in Heaven. Otherwise, we deceive ourselves. After all, God is reflected only in the pure water of our being, and not in the rotten swamps of various philosophies of this world. We see God purifying us as we repent. And repentance means a change of mind; it means, as we said, that first of all we must come to know God, understand that we have a borrowed life and that we are not autonomous (as the thinkers of our age wrote: the “autonomous man”, or the “new man”, who does not have a deep connection with God), and realize that we owe our lives to God.” (Protosinghel Galaction Dominte)

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