Posted on 05/24/2016 6:49:46 AM PDT by Salvation
Many of you know that I write the Question and Answer column for Our Sunday Visitor. Given the celebration of Trinity Sunday this past Sunday, I thought I might reproduce here on the blog a question/answer regarding the Trinity. It is a fairly common question; perhaps you have it, too. Remember that my answers in the column are required to be brief.
We read in a recent Sunday Gospel (May 1, 2016) that Jesus says that the Father is greater than He (Jn 14:28). Since we are all taught that each Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity fully possesses the nature of God, equally to be adored and glorified, what did Jesus mean by such a statement?” – Dick Smith, Carrolton, TX.
Theologically, Jesus means that the Father is the eternal source in the Trinity. All three persons of the Trinity are co-eternal, co-equal, and equally divine. But the Father is the Principium Deitatis (the Source in the Deity).
Hence, Jesus proceeds from the Father from all eternity. He is eternally begotten of the Father. In effect, Jesus is saying, “I delight that the Father is the eternal principle or source of my being, even though I have no origin in time.”
Devotionally, Jesus is saying that He always does what pleases His Father. Jesus loves His Father; He’s crazy about Him. He is always talking about Him and pointing to Him. By calling the Father greater, He says (in effect), “I look to my Father for everything. I do what I see Him doing (Jn 5:19) and what I know pleases Him (Jn 5:30). His will and mine are one. What I will to do proceeds from Him. I do what I know accords with His will.”
So although the members of the Trinity are all equal in dignity, there are processions in the Trinity, such that the Father is the source, the Son eternally proceeds from Him (Jn 8:42), and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principal (Jn 15:26).
St Thomas speaks poetically of the Trinity as follows:
Genitori, Genitoque … Procedenti ab utroque … compar sit laudautio
(To the One Who Begets, and to the Begotton One, and to the One who proceeds from them both, be equal praise.)
The Athanasian Creed says the following regarding these processions:
The Father is made by none, neither created nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone, neither made nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but he proceeds from them.
So although equal, processions do have an order. The Father is “greater” (as source), but is equal in dignity to Son and Holy Spirit.
Please consider subscribing to Our Sunday Visitor. I also write for the National Catholic Register. These are two great publications that deserve your support.
And while I am pointing out my “extra-blogical” activities, I also ask you to consider coming to the Holy Land in March of 2017 with me and Patrick Coffin of Catholic Answers.
I disagree bro. It's not Christ's church. They probably got their ideas out of the book that Rome put together. That's the book that I interpret for myself, with the help of the Holy Spirit, who allows me to be my own pope.
Praise God for Luther, Tyndale, Calvin, and the other Christian reformers, and of course, the Navigators. They told the truth, which is more than others did.
I agree with that BB, but let me approach it from only a very slightly different angle. We know there are many spurious counterfeit cults and religions out there. These false religions and cults, are counterfeits to the truth. I think if there wasn't any spiritual truth out, Satan would not energize people to start false religions. The fact that false religions exist, should clue us in to the fact that the truth is out there too. And you are right. Knowing our Bible well, helps us see right through all the false religions out there.
Yes, there are MANY false religions and prophets in the world which proves that the TRUTH exists and is knowable. I remember learning that “there had to be truth before there was a lie”. Truth existed first - then the devil and all his allies came in and perverted it. I praise God that He gave us the “more sure word of prophecy” - His Sacred Scriptures - so that we can know what the truth is and His Holy Spirit to lead us into that truth.
No, TC, what is sad is that you cannot bring yourself to accept that someone OUTSIDE of Catholicism can KNOW the truth and believe it. One day, you will change your mind because it will be impossible to ignore all those NOT-Catholics in heaven with you (you ARE planning on joining us, right?).
Amen, and, amen.
When you're wrong; and fail to see it; it is a cause for prayer.
Mary is dead; in her grave; and answers no prayers sent her direction.
I believe the Word, found in Scripture.
I rejected the nonsense Catholicism ADDED to the Word and labeled *sacred tradition.*
And we can know the truth and that truth will set us free.
And that's a promise from Jesus.
Awesome, is it not?
Apparently there are others who must have "different traditions," because there are many cults and false religions out there, each with different traditions and weird beliefs, and most with elitist exclusiveness, all claiming to be the only OTC.
They may very well all be wrong, but given their wide disparity of doctrines, there is no way they can all be right. Generally speaking, with possibly some notable exceptions, their plan of salvation, is usually good works, baptism and membership in THEIR church. Sorry, but with the Holy Spirit's help, I am my own pope, and He allows me to cut through all the horse hockey, and see the truth, and ignore the cults. Praise God for the simplicity of the truth.
The truth, after all, has a certain intolerance of error. Why people deliberately try to turn the truth into a cult, I will never know.
Maranatha.
And that's a promise from Jesus.
Awesome, is it not?
Awesome, is it YES.
What I mean is ....
I don't think ANYone prays for 1/2 hour with uplifted hands and head bowed while crawling on his knees towards an alter before turning on the light
Nope, we just go over and hit the switch and as long as all the componants are operational ...
LIGHT !
Hebrews 4:16
King James Version (KJV)
16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
I have faith in the electric company, the mechanics of the switch, my bank account to pay the bill and I switch on and off the light almost without thinking about it
That's MY faith in the One who loves me and careth for me
God knows what we need even before we ask.
The asking isn’t for HIS benefit, as if we are informing Him of something.
It’s for ours.
The asking isn’t for HIS benefit, as if we are informing Him of something.
It’s for ours.
Roger that.
Isn't it amazing....Christ's church grows and prospers for 1,600 years and suddenly Luther et.al. decide that they know more than all the early doctors of the church...then, in the 1930's, the navigators decide that they alone are the authorized interpreters of the Bible.....and you decide that you can be your own Pope and write your own rules and beliefs.....what could go wrong????.........sigh.
There is only one right. If the navigators are right, then everyone else is wrong when it comes to Christianity. Catholicism, the origin of Christianity is right....all others are either wrong or, at best, incomplete.
The perversion occured in the 1600's with the revolution. Men decided that they knew better than the thousands of Christian leaders over the first 16 CENTURIES....
You can indeed know the truth, but if it differs from the Catholic church, then it is WRONG.....you cannot, after 1,600 years of Christianity, decide that you know better than the Catholic church.
Where is that grave.....isn't it amazing that the early Christians would have lost track of where Jesus' mother was buried?????
YAWN............Somehow, I knew you couldn't help yourself and reply to posts with your usual elitist, bigoted and ignorant opinions.
THE truth is contained in the Holy Scriptures just as Almighty God intended it. "Your" church hasn't always believed everything the same from the start. It is a provable FACT that many doctrines and dogmas believed and declared as "de fide" today either were different from the first century Christian faith or were completely unknown by them. If you cannot bring yourself to even acknowledge this, it makes no sense to constantly have to explain these basic things to you over and over again. You have your mind made up, don't let the truth interfere with it, right?
I'll still pray for you, though.
Yeah, sure...
History relevant to the context of the Reformation:
• Cardinal Bellarmine:
"Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- Colon 1617, in “A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,)
• The Avignon Papacy (1309-76) relocated the throne to France and was followed by the Western Schism (1378-1417), with three rival popes excommunicating each other and their sees. Referring to the schism of the 14th and 15th centuries, Cardinal Ratzinger observed,
"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.
"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196). http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/06/13/whos-in-charge-here-the-illusions-of-church-infallibility/)
• Joseph Lortz, German Roman Catholic theologian:
“The real significance of the Western Schism rests in the fact that for decades there was an almost universal uncertainty about where the true pope and the true Church were to be found. For several decades, both popes had excommunicated each other and his followers; thus all Christendom found itself under sentence of excommunication by at least one of the contenders. Both popes referred to their rival claimant as the Antichrist, and to the Masses celebrated by them as idolatry. It seemed impossible to do anything about this scandalous situation, despite sharp protests from all sides, and despite the radical impossibility of having two valid popes at the same time. Time and time again, the petty selfishness of the contenders blocked any solution...”
“The significance of the break-up of medieval unity in the thirteenth century, but even more during the Avignon period, is evident in the most distinctive historical consequence of the Avignon Papacy: the Great Western Schism. The real meaning of this event may not be immediately apparent. It can be somewhat superficially described as a period when there were two popes, each with his own Curia, one residing in Rome, the other in Avignon.”
“When Luther asserted that the pope of Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in their essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined.” ("The Reformation: A Problem for Today” (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), “The Causes of the Reformation," pp. 35-37; . http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/10/roman-catholic-scholar-look-at-causes.html )
• Catholic Encyclopedia>Council of Constance:
“The Western Schism was thus at an end, after nearly forty years of disastrous life; one pope (Gregory XII) had voluntarily abdicated; another (John XXIII) had been suspended and then deposed, but had submitted in canonical form; the third claimant (Benedict XIII) was cut off from the body of the Church, "a pope without a Church, a shepherd without a flock" (Hergenröther-Kirsch). It had come about that, whichever of the three claimants of the papacy was the legitimate successor of Peter, there reigned throughout the Church a universal uncertainty and an intolerable confusion, so that saints and scholars and upright souls were to be found in all three obediences. On the principle that a doubtful pope is no pope, the Apostolic See appeared really vacant, and under the circumstances could not possibly be otherwise filled than by the action of a general council.” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04288a.htm)
• Erasmus, in his new edition of the “Enchiridion: “What man of real piety does not perceive with sighs that this is far the most corrupt of all ages? When did iniquity abound with more licentiousness? When was charity so cold?” (“The Evolution of the English Bible: A Historical Sketch of the Successive,” p. 132 by Henry William Hamilton-Hoare)
• Catholic historian Paul Johnson additionally described the existing social situation among the clergy during this period leading up to the Reformation:
“Probably as many as half the men in orders had ‘wives’ and families. Behind all the New Learning and the theological debates, clerical celibacy was, in its own way, the biggest single issue at the Reformation. It was a great social problem and, other factors being equal, it tended to tip the balance in favour of reform. As a rule, the only hope for a child of a priest was to go into the Church himself, thus unwillingly or with no great enthusiasm, taking vows which he might subsequently regret: the evil tended to perpetuate itself.” (History of Christianity, pgs 269-270)
• Maurice W. Sheehan: In this lecture I want to talk about the causes of the Reformation. This is a rather standard approach to the Reformation because it is admitted by all that the Reformation did not just happen or come like a bolt from the blue...Part of the tragedy of the Reformation is that the Church before 1517 was unable to reform itself or to set in motion events or changes that would have led to a reform in the Church that would have satisfied its members and really affected change....
It is possible to go back deep into the Middle Ages when enumerating or toting up the causes of the Reformation. I would like to start simply with the fourteenth century....
The first thing to note is that in the fourteenth century there was a period of approximately seventy years, from 1309 to 1377, when the pope was not living or residing in Rome...In the midst of the pope living outside of the Italian peninsula, outside of Rome, there occurred one of those events in European history that mark an age forever, and that was the infamous Black Death...Not too long after the Black Death there occurred something that was far worse than the popes living in Avignon... they proceeded to elect a counter-pope in 1378 to the pope who was then living in Rome. This counter-pope was French. He went back to Avignon. The man already resident now in Rome stayed in Rome, and Christendom now had the spectacle of not one pope living where he shouldn't have been, but of two popes each claiming to be the rightful pope, one living in Avignon, the other in Rome.
To...Boniface IX, goes the unenviable distinction of probably having begun the papal sale of offices...
1447 is usually taken as the year that began or marked the appearance of what we call the Renaissance Papacy, or the Renaissance Popes. The Italian Renaissance was in full swing at this time, and when we speak of the Renaissance Popes what we mean more than anything else is that these popes were more men of culture or rulers than popes...Sixtus IV was completely a worldling. He is best known perhaps for the chapel that he built which was later decorated by Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel. His successor Innocent VIII had an illegitimate family. Alexander VI, who was Spanish, was perhaps the worst of them all. He had many illegitimate children, but he was a good political candidate. But his reign as pope did more to weaken the moral prestige of the papacy than almost anything imaginable...
And if we go to the clergy, to what we can call the lower clergy or the ordinary priests, we can say that one vice that many of them had was immorality. Many of them had women that they kept in their rectories by whom they had children, so they had families to support. — Maurice W. Sheehan, O.F.M. Cap., Lecture 2: Prelude-Causes, Attempts at Reform to 1537; International Catholic University http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c01802.htm
• Dickens: In the summer of 1536, Pope Paul III appointed Cardinals Contarini and Cafara and a commission to study church Reform. The report of this commission, the Consilium de emendanda ecclesiae, was completed in March 1537. The final paragraphs deal with the corruptions of Renaissance Rome itself:
“the swarm of sordid and ignorant priests in the city, the harlots who are followed around by clerics and by the noble members of the cardinals’ households …”
“The immediate effects of the Consilium fell far below the hopes of its authors and its very frankness hampered its public use. … the more noticeably pious prelates [note: this the “noticeably pious” clergy] had no longer to tolerate the open cynicism of the Medicean period, and when moral lapses by clerics came to light, pains were now taken to hush them up as matters of grievous scandal.” (G. Dickens, “The Counter Reformation,” pp. 100,102)
• In the same frank spirit is the following statement of de Mézeray, the historiographer of France: [Abrege’ Chronol. VIII. 691, seqq. a Paris, 1681]
“As the heads of the Church paid no regard to the maintenance of discipline, the vices and excesses of the ecclesiastics grew up to the highest pitch, and were so public and universally exposed as to excite against them the hatred and contempt of the people. We cannot repeat without a blush the usury, the avarice, the gluttony, the universal dissoluteness of the priests of this period, the license and debauchery of the monks, the pride and extravagance of the prelates, and the shameful indolence, ignorance and superstition pervading the whole body...
These were not, I confess, new scandals: I should rather say that the barbarism and ignorance of preceding centuries, in some sort, concealed such vices; but,, on the subsequent revival of the light of learning, the spots which I have pointed out became more manifest, and as the unlearned who were corrupt could not endure the light through the pain which it caused to their eyes, so neither did the learned spare them, turning them to ridicule and delighting to expose their turpitude and to decry their superstitions.”
Bossuet* in the opening statements of his “Histoire des Variations,” admits the frightful corruptions of the Church for centuries before the Reformation; and he has been followed in our own times by Frederic von Schlegel [Philosophy of History, 400, 401, 410, Engl. Transl. 1847.] and Möhler. [Symbolik, II. 31, 32, Engl. Transl.]
While all of them are most anxious to prove that the Lutheran movement was revolutionary and subversive of the ancient faith, they are constrained to admit the universality of the abuses, which, in the language of Schlegel, “lay deep, and were ulcerated in their very roots.” — Charles Hardwick A History of the Articles of Religion; http://www.anglicanbooksrevitalized.us/Oldies/Thirty-Nine/hardwick39.htm
• Jaroslav Pelikan (Lutheran, later Eastern Orhodox), The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959), also found:
"Recent research on the Reformation entitles us to sharpen it and say that the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity..."
“The reformers were catholic because they were spokesmen for an evangelical tradition in medieval catholicism, what Luther called "the succession of the faithful." The fountainhead of that tradition was Augustine (d. 430). His complex and far-reaching system of thought incorporated the catholic ideal of identity plus universality, and by its emphasis upon sin and grace it became the ancestor of Reformation theology. … All the reformers relied heavily upon Augustine. They pitted his evangelical theology against the authority of later church fathers and scholastics, and they used him to prove that they were not introducing novelties into the church, but defending the true faith of the church.”
“...To prepare books like the Magdeburg Centuries they combed the libraries and came up with a remarkable catalogue of protesting catholics and evangelical catholics, all to lend support to the insistence that the Protestant position was, in the best sense, a catholic position.
Additional support for this insistence comes from the attitude of the reformers toward the creeds and dogmas of the ancient catholic church. The reformers retained and cherished the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures in Christ which had developed in the first five centuries of the church….”
“If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers' claim to catholicity becomes clear. (Pelikan, pp. 46-47)
"Substantiation for this understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures, but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable." (Pelikan 48-49).
However, Scripture, tradition and history can only assuredly consist of and mean what Rome may say they do, and which is the real basis for the veracity of Rome for a RC. Thus no less than Cardinal Manning stated,
• "It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine....The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour." — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, pp. 227,288)
More: (http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/deformation_of_new_testament_church.html#Historical)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.