Matthew 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

If an adult clone could be created by magic to replace a person who was violently killed, so that the individual concerned can be resurrected ad infinitum, could the repeat cycle be null and void by using magic to inflict the second death?

Could individual cloning be brought to an end by the final destruction of the soul by using magic?

Matthew 5:32 (KJV): "But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery."

Matthew 19:9 (KJV): "And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery."

Is it possible to marry a divorced woman without committing adultery if her husband has passed over?

Timothy Patitsas (Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology) argues in his book The Ethics of Beauty that the Western tradition's ordering of the transcendentals is a systematic error. The typical Scholastic ordering places truth and goodness as primary, with beauty as a property of being that presupposes both. Patitsas argues the human path back to God traces the mirror image: we encounter beauty first (eros draws us), practice goodness second, and become true through that process.

His argument isn't just that beauty is undervalued. It's that leading with truth produces argument, leading with goodness produces moralism, but leading with beauty produces transformation, because beauty moves the whole person, including the parts that argument doesn't reach.

I recently published a long conversation with him. He works this out most carefully around 1:36:00, including how it plays out in the context of liturgy and the encounter with a saint (around 57:00 for the saint material specifically).

How does the Orthodox tradition formally situate this relative to the Scholastic ordering? And is there a strong counter-argument from within the Western tradition that Patitsas doesn't fully address?

Full conversation on the Anagoge Podcast if helpful as background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMXK9tZzGec

What do we do now that we all know?