Talk:Eastern Orthodox Christian theology

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Contents 1 Recent major edits 2 On the renaming of the article 3 Neutrality 4 "particular to that communion"

[edit] Recent major edits

Thanks for the recent major edits to the article. They generally look good, although as is the case with the main article, we still need to bring some citations to bear.

A note of Wikipedia etiquette, though: Please don't mark such edits as "minor." Minor edits are edits which fix things like grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. These were definitely major content edits, involving 38 separate edits and replacing and deleting a significant portion of content. —Preost ^talk contribs 02:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, I am aware of wikipedia etiquette. But actually, if you look at each edit one-by-one, you see that each is concerned merely with tidying up some poorly-turned phrases or removing stray comments. The fact that I made a series of such edits doesn't really affect the fact that each edit taken on its own is minor. I won't squabble over the matter, though.

As always, Maxim662 09:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On the renaming of the article

I have reverted the renaming of the article as 'Eastern Orthodox Church theology', for the following reasons:

1. 'Eastern Orthodox theology' is the most commonly established usage in English for designating the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
2. 'Eastern Orthodox' is a standard and adequately specific means of adjectivally qualifying something as pertaining to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
3. 'Eastern Orthodox Church theology' is a confused locution. It may be grammatically confused (since 'Church' and 'theology' are both nouns), or it may mis-title the article, since the article is about Eastern Orthodox theology generally, and not simply about Eastern Orthodox ecclesiastical theology.

A number of articles pertaining to Eastern Orthodoxy have been changed in this way. I suggest it would be better for such changes to be discussed before being made, and the most obvious forum for that would be the Eastern Orthodoxy wikiproject.

Best, Maxim662 20:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• Maxim: So how would you deal with the problem of those who may confuse this with Orthodox Judaism which is called only Orthodoxy many times. Indeed, when mentioning "Orthodoxy" (the Jewish kind) the method is to dab it thus: Orthodoxy ([[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodoxy]]) and this should likewise be done with Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In any case, what do the words "Eastern Orthodox" alone mean? Eastern Orthodox what? Is it not the Eastern Orthodox Church's theology that this article deals with? IZAK 02:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, of course, when a Jewish context is given, then it makes perfect sense to speak of Orthodox Judaism as 'Orthodoxy' without any qualification. Similarly, given a Christian context, then to speak of Eastern Orthodoxy as 'Orthodoxy' without any qualification likewise makes perfect sense.

And indeed, had this article been called 'Orthodox theology', without qualification, it would have been ambiguous whether it was about Orthodox Christianity or Orthodox Judaism.

But this article is not entitled 'Orthodox theology', but 'Eastern Orthodox theology', and in English, 'Eastern Orthodox' refers to Orthodox Christianity, and not to Orthodox Judaism. It is simply not the case that there is any significant usage in English of referring to Orthodox Judaism as 'Eastern Orthodox' or 'Eastern Orthodoxy'. But, on the other hand, it is well established in English to use the expression 'Eastern Orthodoxy' unqualified to designate Orthodox Christianity, and to use 'Eastern Orthodox' to designate that which pertains to Orthodox Christianity.

Best, Maxim662 13:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• Maxim: While arguments based on English language usage alone may shift some of the arguments in your favor, it is neither here nor there, because as you have admitted, the words "Orthodox" and "Orthodoxy" can be confused causing confusion, which is the central problem I am grappling with here, and which should be clarified in titles and article headings. We are dealing here with a problem relating more to Wikipedia:Disambiguation and how best to set the names of articles so that they convey maximum clarity, when not everyone is an expert on "Orthodoxies" of varying kinds. IZAK 05:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Izak, I am weary of this. There is no ambiguity here, since, in English, no Jewish group is called 'Eastern Orthodox'. So there is nothing to be disambiguated. You are pretending an ambiguity exists when it does not exist.

You have missed my point RE Orthodoxy. I said that were 'Orthodoxy' used on its own then it would be ambiguous. But 'Orthodoxy' used within the construction 'Eastern Orthodoxy' is not ambiguous, since 'Eastern Orthodoxy' is not ambiguous. In the same way, to have an article entitled 'Union' would be ambiguous, but to have one entitled 'European Union' is not ambiguous. I'm sure you understand now.

Best, Maxim662 18:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality

I added the neutrality tag; I didn't see a dispute in the recent history. The language in the article appears to flip-flop between having a neutral discussion of theology and (accidentally?) making theological statements as fact, e.g.

God is merciful to all. 
The Orthodox believe that there is nothing that a person (Orthodox or non-Orthodox) can do to earn salvation. 
It is rather a gift from God.

This first and third state something as fact, and the middle one is (correctly) presented as a tenet of Orthodox Theology. If I had a bunch of time, I would clean it up myself. Quamaretto 00:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Is that necessary? One would think that on a page titled "Eastern Orthodox Christian theology," the views detaield therein would be representative of Eastern Orthodox Christian theology and not necessarily hard facts.

I agree. It is obvious that any statements made in the article are about Eastern theology, and it would be most uneconomical to say "Orthodox belive that..." before every sentence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.245.199.129 (talk) 15:13, 4 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] "particular to that communion"

The lead sentence reads "The theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church is particular to that Christian communion." What is the intent of this sentence? Who would consider that the theology would not be "particular" to that communion? Or, conversely, what theology is not particular to the communion that holds that theology? In short, the sentence seems trite and I propose to delete it. --Richard 18:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)