A very big question.
If you understand the theology behind why celibacy is spiritually superior to being married, are you then obligated to seek it out?
Can there be any justification for not being celibate if you can find no flaw the logic?
The fathers are careful to defend, and even go so far as to anathamatise anyone who denigrates, marrage. But they are equally careful to extol celibacy as being vastly better. Ergo, the ideal would be (and check me if I'm wrong here) that all Orthodox would embrace celibacy, and the church would expand by conversion only. In a perfect world. In reality the church fathers are not stupid and never for a moment thought or believed that this would happen. But does that give an excuse? Is it true that once you grasp the truth of that theology, you are then obligated to follow a celibate life even though you have, ostensably, a choice? If you were in front of the judgment throne and asked why you chose to marry over choosing celibacy, when you had been granted this understanding...is there any answer good enough?
I could not bear it Lord.
But theoretically everyone can, if they give themselves to God utterly. It is easier for some than for others, but in principle, anyone can. Right? Wrong? I don't know. The concept of celibacy seemes to me an incredably bitter one. I cannot make myself like it no matter how hard I try. I cannot even make myself ask for it seriously. I am at very bitter war with myself. On the one hand, I find no flaw in the church fathers logic (shocking I know), on the other hand, I burn with unwillingness to forgo marrage forever. Everything I ever wanted, a wife, a family, children, sex. etc... none of it is acceptable...or is it? It's not a sin. That much is clear. But what is acceptable once you know something more than you used to know? Accountability is a gigantic thing in Orthodoxy. You are accountable for what you know, but I'd be lying if I said this knowledge felt like anything other than a hot coal inside me, burning, screaming to be expelled, or finally swallowd, one or the other, and I cannot bring myself to swallow it. Nor can I reject the logic that put it there. I am at an indecision that will surely kill me if I do not do something about it with a good lick of speed.
I am seeking any wisdom at all that anyone reading this has to dispense.
Alexey the Sinner.
Can there be any justification for not being celibate if you can find no flaw the logic?
The fathers are careful to defend, and even go so far as to anathamatise anyone who denigrates, marrage. But they are equally careful to extol celibacy as being vastly better. Ergo, the ideal would be (and check me if I'm wrong here) that all Orthodox would embrace celibacy, and the church would expand by conversion only. In a perfect world. In reality the church fathers are not stupid and never for a moment thought or believed that this would happen. But does that give an excuse? Is it true that once you grasp the truth of that theology, you are then obligated to follow a celibate life even though you have, ostensably, a choice? If you were in front of the judgment throne and asked why you chose to marry over choosing celibacy, when you had been granted this understanding...is there any answer good enough?
I could not bear it Lord.
But theoretically everyone can, if they give themselves to God utterly. It is easier for some than for others, but in principle, anyone can. Right? Wrong? I don't know. The concept of celibacy seemes to me an incredably bitter one. I cannot make myself like it no matter how hard I try. I cannot even make myself ask for it seriously. I am at very bitter war with myself. On the one hand, I find no flaw in the church fathers logic (shocking I know), on the other hand, I burn with unwillingness to forgo marrage forever. Everything I ever wanted, a wife, a family, children, sex. etc... none of it is acceptable...or is it? It's not a sin. That much is clear. But what is acceptable once you know something more than you used to know? Accountability is a gigantic thing in Orthodoxy. You are accountable for what you know, but I'd be lying if I said this knowledge felt like anything other than a hot coal inside me, burning, screaming to be expelled, or finally swallowd, one or the other, and I cannot bring myself to swallow it. Nor can I reject the logic that put it there. I am at an indecision that will surely kill me if I do not do something about it with a good lick of speed.
I am seeking any wisdom at all that anyone reading this has to dispense.
Alexey the Sinner.