It’s nine months until we celebrate the birth of Jesus and today is the Feast of the Annunciation.
I believe that the moment of conception is the moment a human being, made in God’s image, a person with an immortal soul, is created by God. For a Christian no other view stands up to scrutiny; no other view is logical.
Today, then, we celebrate the moment when God himself became fully Man while remaining fully God. Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. He emptied himself to the extent that he became a microscopic clump of cells embedded in the womb of one of his creatures.
Jesus came into the world at the moment of his conception.
Merry Christmas.
Incarnation is the most difficult doctrine for humans to believe. It is very hard to believe that Jesus was born without any input from a male human. If you don’t believe in the Incarnation, then you will never believe in the Resurrection. God is God. Humans are not God. God becomes man two thousand years ago. Humans can never become God. We remain God’s creatures created in His image.
Just asking as a traditional Eastern Orthodox Christian: what happens when there is a miscarriage? No fault of the mother or father? what about anencephopathic birth (no brain)? Does the Church have an answer to these situations? I’d like to know.
In this world, we have natural evils (hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.) and moral evils (wars, crimes, injustices, etc.). Much suffering and loss of human lives are caused by a host of diseases. Nobody is able to put the problem of evil to rest finally and completely. According to the Bible, natural evil is the consequence of moral evil. Adam chose to disobey God and he was condemned by God. It is very difficult for us to understand the existence of evil in a world created by an all-loving, and all-powerful God. God has His own reasons not to remove the evil present in the world. God is God; we are not gods. God sees the past, present, and future at a single moment; we don’t. God knows everything; we don’t. We have more questions than answers in this life. We don’t expect to know all the answers. But, we must continue to ask questions. We must continue to put our trust in the triune God.