Posted on 11/05/2009 8:59:31 AM PST by Mr Rogers
I don't see the Orthodox splintering, so there goes that theory.
Do you? Do you know what God is? The Church says that the Holy Trinity is incomprehensible to human minds and cannot be understood (or as the Orthodox like to put it "where words fall silent"). God is the Supreme Mystery, "beyond everything and all".
It must be believed. Not taught, but "revealed." So, not even the Church can describe the undescirbable, or explain the incomprehensible, or know the unknowable. No one can. For the Church, God is a supreme Mystery. Man is limited to knowng God by knowing what God is not, and not what God is.
Excellent good. Thanks for posting.
How do you read the quotation? Does it not say that God through his word made Jesus?
That is right. Every translation is a transmission of the ideas, audience and experience of the time.
Ive read that thread. I thought kosta50 gave a great Pre-sponse, since it came earlier, here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2370551/posts?page=206#206
Shortly later, he gave an excellent post here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2370551/posts?page=209#209
***the consistency of the Church does not reflect the debates of the Church Fathers.
Those who continue in debate and disagreement are heretics in the same fashion of the arians who denied Christ’s divinity.***
Or of any other heretical group.
***If a great Church Father cannot accept the Consensus Patrum, he is evicted
This consensus was agreed upon with the dogma of Immaculate Conception as well and did not end with in the 11th century schism***
It was simply a reiteration and formalization of what the Church always believed; same as the formalization of the Old Testament by the same Council. It is binding upon the Latins, anyway. And, if agreed upon by the East in an ecumenical Council, it will be binding upon them as well. We just have different ways of stating the same thing. The Fathers need to be studied and understood a whole lot more in the West. That is one of the reasons why BXVI is head, shoulders, torso and waist above anybody that the Vatican has had in the last millennium or so.
***Remember that the formulation of the Trinity took hundreds of years to get their arms around and still to this day, many if not most Christians really don’t have a clue as to what the Trinity is.
Do you? Do you know what God is? The Church says that the Holy Trinity is incomprehensible to human minds and cannot be understood (or as the Orthodox like to put it “where words fall silent”). God is the Supreme Mystery, “beyond everything and all”.
It must be believed. Not taught, but “revealed.” So, not even the Church can describe the undescirbable, or explain the incomprehensible, or know the unknowable. No one can. For the Church, God is a supreme Mystery. Man is limited to knowng God by knowing what God is not, and not what God is.***
Do I? I believe what the Church believes; what the Creeds say and that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are one God, the Trinity. I was speaking to the beliefs of many that God the Father is the stern Jovian overlord of the OT, killing and maiming at whim; Jesus is the messenger subordinate and androgenous, who loves all of mankind and came to us as friend and helper; and the Holy Spirit who is the messenger boy of Jesus who is faceless and nameless and merely acts as Jesus or God the Father dictate.
We have certain things that the Church says IS. Agreed, we have more things that the Church says IS NOT. But there are some positive statements that are embraced by the Faith.
***Actually, that’s not how I read the quotation or Kolo’s question. Jesus Himself was not ‘made’; the flesh was made
How do you read the quotation? Does it not say that God through his word made Jesus?***
No; the quote by Kolo from Justin Martyr states that Jesus was made flesh through the word of God. If one considers that God is the Trinity, what is the problem? The word of God? John says that Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus made himself flesh? I find no problem or question here. The mystery of the HOW will stand presumably until we stand in front of Him, certainly. If one considers that the statement points to the flesh and not Jesus, there is no controversy.
The Orthodox split with Rome was entirely different in every way from the Protestant one so there goes your objection.
The Orthodox are in schism, not in heresy.
Heretical rupture with Rome begets more heresy and more splintering.
That's not a theory, it's a historical fact.
Glad I could help.
***Ive read that thread. I thought kosta50 gave a great Pre-sponse, since it came earlier, here:
Shortly later, he gave an excellent post here:***
Agreed. The Church has obviously changed; there are certain things that can be milestones in its development; the doctrine of the Trinity and the formalization of responses to the major heresies as they came along and the resulting doctrinal development are notable.
Look, you don’t even know the terminology you are writing about.
Transubstantiation refers solely to the explanation of how real presence comes to be.
No one, no one with a half a brain about historical theology is looking for transsubstantiation in the Church Fathers.
The issue is whether Christ is really present or not.
You are using transubstantiation as a synonym for real presence. It is not. Luther believed in real presence but thought it came about by consubstantiation.
Ignorant Catholics may use the term transsubstantiation when they mean real presence. Knowledgable Catholics do not.
I’m giving you a hand up. You could be better informed than some ignorant Catholics.
Schaff’s argumentation is fallacious, weasely. He uses terms equivocally. He’s playing games. I’ll give you a piece of advice: if you want to argue for a Reformed Eucharistic “spiritual” presence, use someone intelligent, like Heron. Schaff does you no credit.
Pedant.
Specious.
Discuss the issues all you wanta, but do not make it personal.
Actually, Justin Martyr says "as Jesus Christ...was made flesh through the word of God." +John says "Word became flesh." In the former, Jesus Christ is created through the word of God. In the latter, the Word takes on human nature. The Creed says he became enfleshed and became man. The Latin translation adds "made" in all instances leading to a conceptual error.
The Word did not simply cover himself with flesh to become visible. There was such a heresy that was condemned. The Word did to make his "Mini me." There was such a heresy as well and was condemned. Thus the Churhc knew form the beginning that the Word became man by taking on human nature, that he was not just a man-look-alike while being a God inside. Rather, that he was a true man and true God, two wills, two natures, unconfused in one person. In fact Incarnation is known as the hypostatic union, the union of two realities, the impossible.
Justin Martyr simply did not have that concept. In fact, probably no one did at that time.
The mystery of the HOW will stand presumably until we stand in front of Him, certainly
I don't think so. That would imply that one day we will understand God, that we will be God by nature and not by grace.
If one considers that the statement points to the flesh and not Jesus, there is no controversy
But, Jesus, is flesh! Jesus is the Word in his human nature. Not God's "Mini me," not his clone, not his creation.
Which brings me to the Catechism you posted. In 52. it states that "it was His will that men should have access tom the Father through Christ..." yet Jesus repeatedly reminds his disciples that what he does or says is not his will but the will of the Father.
LOL! Now you made me laugh. :) As long as the Orthodox teach that there is no Immaculate Conception, no papal infallibility, no Purgatory, no "Original Sin" as Augustine defined it, etc. the Orthodox teach a different doctrine from the Latins. And that is, the definition, heresy. The Orthodox deny your dogmas and they are mere "schismatics?"
the Pope and the EP "committed to oblivion" in 1964. as regards excommunications of 1054, it merely returned the EP Ceruliarus and Cardinal Umbert back to the Church, making those excommunications null and void.
It doesn't change the fact that the two Churches differ on theological grounds as well as papal primacy of jurisdiction. What is different between protestants and Orthodox is that the latter is a sui juris Church and Protestant communities are Catholic fallouts. The Portetsants have only two options: remain outside the Church or return to the Latin fold. I think when it comes to reuniting with the Orthodox, the issue is moot, and the uniate approach is outright out of the question.
Pathetic.
Ping to read later
Yes they are.
The break with Rome was a schism. Absolutely a schism. Nothing more. An entirely different set of circumstances from the new theology of the Reformation. This was not a fundamental rupture over the very nature of what constitutes "church" or the sacraments. Heresy did not cause the break with Rome.
The Immaculate Conception issue did not cause the break with Rome neither did the quarrel over the nature of Purgatory. This was not a dispute over dogma. In fact in the case of the quarrels over purgatory, consecration by the words of institution, the procession of the Holy Ghost etc, there is really a misrepresentation of the the dogma to which the Orthodox object.
The relative integrity of the Orthodox churches in spite of their break with Rome does not in any way undermine the argument I made with respect to the Protestant churches for there is one fundamental difference between the two. The Orthodox still maintain access to the true sacraments of the Church while the Protestants do not. In that respect, the rupture with Rome is of an entirely different nature and of a drastically different severity to that which has occurred with the post-Reformation churches.
Bingo!
As we see Pope Paul VI explain in His encyclical on Indulgences
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P6INDULG.HTM
“For an exact understanding of this doctrine and of its beneficial use it is necessary, however, to remember truths which the entire Church illumined by the Word of God has always believed and which the bishops, the successors of the Apostles, and first and foremost among them the Roman Pontiffs, the successors of Peter, have taught by means of pastoral practice as well as doctrinal documents throughout the course of centuries to this day.”
In other words... In matters of faith and morals everything the church has believed is infallible regardless if it becomes dogma
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