Throwback Thursday: The Age of Epicurean Delusions: Are Good Works Necessary?
Note: This 2018 offering by Fr. Fabrizius is a reflection upon the Epicurian nature of our American culture, and the danger it poses for confessors of the Book of Concord. ~ Ed.
The Age of Epicurean Delusions: Are Good Works Necessary?
In the Holy Scriptures themselves the words necessity, needful, and necessary, as well as ought and must, are used to describe what we are bound to do because of God’s ordinance, command, and will. …These sayings should rightly be employed and used to reject the secure, Epicurean delusion. For many create for themselves a dead faith or delusion that lacks repentance and good works. They act as though there could be true faith in a heart at the same time as the wicked intention to persevere and continue in sin [Romans 6:1–2]. This is impossible. Or, they act as though a person could have and keep true faith, righteousness, and salvation even though he is and remains a corrupt and unfruitful tree, from which no good fruit comes at all. In fact, they say this even though a person persists in sins against conscience or purposely engages again in these sins. All of this is incorrect and false.[1]
Above all, this false Epicurean delusion is to be seriously rebuked and rejected: some imagine that faith, and the righteousness and salvation that they have received, cannot be lost through sins or wicked deeds, not even through willful and intentional ones. They imagine that a Christian retains faith, God’s grace, righteousness, and salvation even though he indulges his wicked lusts without fear and shame, resists the Holy Spirit, and purposely engages in sins against conscience.[2]
In these two paragraphs from our Lutheran Confessions, we see an important topic which must be addressed again in our American culture. But what is an Epicurean delusion? Epicurus (341-270 BC) was a Greek philosopher who taught that actions of gods should be rejected in favor of a materialistic view, rejecting a theistic approach to philosophy. The individual was to lead a self-sufficient life that pursued pleasure, peace, freedom from fear, and the absence of pain. This pursuit of pleasure led to more indulgence in fine foods, drink, hedonism and lust.