The Papacy and Islam

Bearean Beacon ^ | Richard Bennett and Robert J. Nicholson

[betty boop]

Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit; mortal men do not baptize with the Holy Spirit. Rather, they baptize with water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They commend but God attends.

Eloquently and graciously said, dearest sister in Christ!

Enjoy your company!!! May God's blessings be with you all.

[kosta50]

Even that doesn't really get at it, in my opinion, because I don't worship an idea of God; I worship God through (or by way of) my idea or concept of God

It doesn't matter if it is your idea or a communal idea; it is still an idea. An icon of Christ is precisely that — an icon, an image, an idea of Christ; no one really thinks that's what He really looked like.

God. My idea of God is developing, since I am learning more and more about God

It will continue developing, because God is perfect and we will never know Him as he really is. So, by that approach, we will be worshiping an "idol" (our idea of God) forever.

What assures us that we are worshiping the "true God" is Christ. If we worship Christ, we know that we worship His Father and His Spirit, or simply the true, Triune God.

That's why Christ said that we can come to the Father only thorough Him. he is the only mediator between us (men[kind]) and God the Father.

This is reflected in our Creed "God of God, true God of true God..." wisely chosen words of the Fathers.

Otherwise, "true God" would really become a relativistic concept that would be all inclusive, no only of the Abrahamic God (Jews and Muslims), but of Hindu's Brahman who is described by upanishads in vedas as a singular:

[U]nchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being, and everything beyond in this universe...This Supreme Cosmic Spirit or Absolute Reality called Brahman is said to be eternal, genderless, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and ultimately indescribable in the human language. It can be at best described as infinite Being, infinite Consciousness and infinite Bliss. Brahman is regarded as the source and essence of the material universe. It is pure being."

If we admit that anyone who worships a divine Monad (one God) is no different than we are, then Christ himself is an idol and not true God.

Thus, we cannot for the sake of political correctness or "fairness" or cultural sensitivity or any kind of religious tolerance fad assume that all faiths that profess one single God are true faiths or that their God is true God, even though it is not like our God or is even inimical to Him.

[adiaireton8]

Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit

Have you been confirmed/chrismated? If not, then from the point of view of all the Christians who lived during the first 1500 years of the Church, you have not yet been baptized with the Holy Spirit.

-A8

[adiaireton8]

Your going to have a hard time then with what Paul said to the Athenians about their altar to "an Unknown God".

-A8

[kosta50]

I didn’t realize Greek was the standard language of Jerusalem at the time of Christ; especially given the mixture of Roman soldiers and fervent Hebrews. I guess one learns something new every day. I can go back to bed now

Not so fast, HD! :) When you find Hebrew originals of the Gospels then we will go by their constructs. In the meantime we will have to follow the Greek system. I believe we all that the NT was choesn to be in Greek. Why is there so much resistence in the Protestant community to this?

[kosta50]

Your going to have a hard time then with what Paul said to the Athenians about their altar to "an Unknown God"

God is "known" to us to be the true Goid only because we believe that Christ is the true God. As for +Paul, trouble was his last name. It is safe to say that the Church did not (and does not teach everything he taught. Part of it was mentioned in Post #6 which I asked to be removed because it mentioned other confessions when Alex correctly objected.

[adiaireton8]

As for +Paul, trouble was his last name. It is safe to say that the Church did not (and does not teach everything he taught.

So are you saying that Paul's statement, "What you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you" (Acts 17:23) is false?

If so, do you also think Jesus spoke falsely when He told the Samaritan woman "You worship that which you do not know" (John 4:22)?

-A8

[Kolokotronis]

“There are Scriptural passages indicating such a perspective.”

I don’t doubt that there are passages which could be read by some to demonstrate such a concept, especially if one were motivated to read those passges in that manner. But if in fact that’s what those passages mean, it does appear that from, again, an historical perspective, Christianity had fallen into apostacy within the lifetime of people who had actually known Christ, which, as was pointed out before, seems unlikely. In all honesty, it would seem to me preferable to simply state, for those in “ecclesial communities”, that theosis absolutely can be found outside The Church rather than to posit an “invisible” church.

[GoLightly]

This is part one. Whether or not I'll finish addressing the rest, don't know. I type really slow, I'm working my way through a bunch of different sources & my stamina isn't always dependable anymore.

The idea that the Church is merely the set of all believers was unheard of until the 16th century. That should help us rightly interpret the passages in Scripture that speak of the Church.

From your perspective, it is innovation. I'm gonna move some of your text out of place.

Interestingly, in the East, especially by the 7th century, but earlier too, one reads comments from members of The Church about bishops, priests, monks and laity who were members of hierarchial, ecclesial, eucharistic assemblies which were not part of The Church. These writers were quite clear that they did not accept that the eucharist, or any of the sacraments of these "ecclesial groups" was in any way valid or efficacious...but they never wrote that these people were ipso facto damned.

From the perspective of these "outsiders", I'm sure they believed that they were the ones who got it correct. Whether or not any of them took the same position about the body as the Reformers is probably not knowable. Christ would know whether or not they were in His flock, kept in a different pen. If the Early Church Fathers had declared all members of these groups to be ipso facto damned, it would support innovation later adopted by the Church.

In the Great Schism I tend to lean toward the Orthodox position. I've wondered if my position has to do with personal experiences with a lot of Roman Catholics & a dearth of contact with Orthodox Christians. I also considered whether or not it had anything to do with my upbringing, where there might have been some anti-Rome teachings slipped into Sunday school & Catechism. I don't remember a thing said about Rome from either the pulpit or in Sunday school & Catechism taught me to see those who follow Rome to be my brothers in Christ. Personal experience taught me that many of Rome's children did not see me in the same way. Children do learn more from their parent's actions than by their parent's words, don't they?

All that said, when I said there was innovation by the Church, it was not only on the side of Rome. Either a see has autonomy over its portion of the flock or it does not. Is everyone required to be circumcised or not? The wrestling match over the actual structure of the Church's hierarchy makes the Catholic position about hierarchy interesting to those of us on the outside looking in. You tell us it is there, you're only working out the finer details of its flowchart and... a few other things. Meanwhile, a Lutheran Rite pops into the fold... kind of.

[GoLightly]

One more quick thing, a link. Don’t know if you’ve ever seen it before...

http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/lutheran.htm

[kosta50]

So are you saying that Paul's statement, "What you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you" (Acts 17:23) is false?

+Paul skillfully used the occasion to preach Christ. That's all.

The Greeks Fathers speak of other religions as having sporoi ("seeds") of truth, but not truth itself. If we assume that we do not know true God, then we truly worship idols and our faith is no closer to true God than any other. That's not what Christianity professes.

If so, do you also think Jesus spoke falsely when He told the Samaritan woman "You worship that which you do not know" (John 4:22)?

The rest of that verse says "we [Jews] worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews."

As Christians, we cannot agree with that; neither can we assert that Jews know because they steadfastly reject Christ; nor can we say that salvation cames from the Jews, but a Jew whose followers are all Gentiles.

[Quix]

It is clear to me, from Scripture,

That various congregations had fallen into serious levels of apostasy

WHILE ST PAUL WAS STILL SCRIBING SCRIPTURE.

[GoLightly]

I’m sorry to hear that you were dragged to such a lifeless church in your youth & consider it to be a blessing that you didn’t give up, but instead found a community where you could be fed. I also want to apologize for my prior behaviour toward you.

[Kolokotronis]

“From the perspective of these “outsiders”, I’m sure they believed that they were the ones who got it correct.”

I don’t doubt that for a minute!

“Whether or not any of them took the same position about the body as the Reformers is probably not knowable.”

It is, actually. Virtually all of them believed that their group was The Church. If one looks at their structure, these groups were in virtually every observable institutional aspect, just like The Church. But their theologies were off from that of The Church.

“At any rate, every one of them claimed to be part of The Church Christ would know whether or not they were in His flock, kept in a different pen.”

Not really. They claimed they were “The Church”, not part of it or part of some amorphous invisible church.”

“If the Early Church Fathers had declared all members of these groups to be ipso facto damned, it would support innovation later adopted by the Church.”

Yes, had they said that, it would have supported the later Latin position, but the consensus patrum didn’t.

“Either a see has autonomy over its portion of the flock or it does not.”

Now you see, that’s a very Orthodox point of view, in broad sweeps. Pre-supposing bishops in the Apostolic Succession, correct teaching (which is to say non-heretical) and valid sacraments, the Latins would argue that a local diocese does not have autonomy of any sort as all dioceses are subject to the immediate jurisdiction of the Pope. The fullness of The Church can thus only be found in those dioceses collectively which are in communion with Rome. Orthodoxy, on the other hand, takes the position that the fullness of The Church is found in a single diocese.”

“Meanwhile, a Lutheran Rite pops into the fold... kind of.”

Ah, that’s an excellent example of what I am talking about; hierarchial, liturgical, centered on a eucharist and yet not looked upon as “The Church”, as a general proposition at least, by either Orthodoxy or the Latin Church. The consequences of that view for the theosis of Lutherans, however, are very different, a “who knows?” with a shrug from Orthodoxy and, traditionally, damnation from Rome.

By the way, I find some Lutherans amazingly Orthodox in both praxis and mindset. really a shame they didn’t join up with Orthodoxy back in the day.

[HarleyD]

Excuse me but aren’t you the one who is always claiming the gospels were not written down for the first 300 years? It was all by oral recital. If that is the case, what they spoke makes no difference at all because it was never recorded until the Greeks came along.

[Kolokotronis]

“Excuse me but aren’t you the one who is always claiming the gospels were not written down for the first 300 years? It was all by oral recital.”

You never heard that from me, HD. They certainly were written down and within the 1st century. Maybe you are thinking of the establishment of the canon of the NT being as a practical matter accomplished in the 4th century.

[GoLightly]

Ha! Part two. A, your references to +Ignatius of Antioch certainly ought to settle the question of what the early Church believed The Church is, at least from an historical perspective. As you point out, the notion that there is some sort of "invisible" Church is simply unknown until the Protestant Reformation, again at least from an historical perspective.

I tend to go with it being a mystery to men instead of "invisible".

One will search the writings of the Fathers and the acts of the Councils in vain for anything like an invisible Church concept.

I see more support for it in Scripture than the structure which Rome built upon the foundation. Don't bother with a two wrongs not making a right scold. I'm impervious to it. LOL We're talking about people who discovered their feet had somehow managed to land on both sides of the Great Schism, with a fervent desire to do God's will, unwanted by both sides. IMO, when they made the cut, through necessity, they didn't cut deep enough. They didn't address entanglement between church & state.

I suspect that the idea arose after the reformers broke with the Latin Church which, at least then (and even into my lifetime) and for about 5 centuries before that, was quite adamant that there was no salvation outside of the Latin Church; indeed it taught that there was no salvation absent submission to the universal immediate jurisdiction of the Pope. In the East one doesn’t see this idea as firmly and universally accepted. In other words, among the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox there was not and is not any consensus that theosis/salvation is found only within the bounds of The Church. This is not to say that in the East we say that theosis is found outside The Church. We say simply that we know it is found within The Church, don’t know if it is found outside and can’t presume to limit the economy of salvation. For Orthodoxy, membership in The Church/theosis is not necessarily a closed system.

Part of me wonders if any of the Patriarchs sent a letter to Rome, along the lines of, "we tried to tell you"... all wrapped up in diplospeak, of course.

But the reformers were acting within the context of a Latin system and mindset which condemned to hell anyone who wasn’t "in" The Church, and the Latin Church at that. Since they were clearly not "in" and since being "in" was the sine qua non of salvation, they certainly had to come up with something and thus this idea of an invisible church came up. Apparently the reformers were as convinced as the Latins that membership in a "church", if not The Church as the Latins would have it, was indeed necessary for salvation.

I agree.

So the issue was and is where salvation is found. Where the reformers went off the rails, in my opinion, was in the thoroughly innovative idea of what constituted The Church.

Bottom line, The Church, the Ecclesia, is a visible, hierarchial, Eucharistic institution within which we can be saved. There is no other "Church" or "church". To say otherwise is simply a 16th century innovation. To say with certitude however that theosis is NOT found outside the visible institution of the Ecclesia (let alone that it is only found in communion with the Pope of Rome) is simply itself outside the 2000 year old consensus patrum.

You & I will have to agree to disagree on the stickier points.

[GoLightly]

My post above this one was supposed to be to you.

[kosta50]

• Excuse me but aren’t you the one who is always claiming the gospels were not written down for the first 300 years? It was all by oral recital

No. The Gospels and the Epistles were written in the 1st century. Th oldest complete canon of the NT we have is a 4th century copy of copies of the originals (which don't exist lor exist but have not been found yet).

The oldest copies of the 1st century originals are 2nd and 3rd century shreds (i.e. "fragments") most of which contain only parts of the books of the NT, some only a dozen verses.

Thus we really don't know what the originals looked like. But we do know that they vary from fragment to fragment. The oldest fragment of all is dated c. 125 AD and contains the Gospels of John. The heading doesn't say "According to John." All it says is α (alpha, used as number 1, for first page). Someone added "According to John" in subsequent copies.

Typical fragment (shred) of a 2nd century portion of John (18:36 - 19:7)

The oldest complete copy of the NT can be found is Codex Sinaiticus, mid 4th century

This may give you a better idea what the oldest "Gospels" look like. So, while there is no doubt that Gospels/Epistles were written in the 1st century, based on the surviving accounts of early church Fathers, we not only don't have even fragments but we don't even have complete copies of the copies of the copies all the way to the 4th century!

Now, unlike the Masoretic scribes, the Christian scribes were not nearly as neat, so various copies vary in content and every other possible variation. Even the two oldest complete bibles (Sinaiticus, already mentioned, and Codex Vaticanus) show considerable variation, which only gets worse with the 5th century Codex Alexandrinus, which is heavily redacted and edited.

It was the last source that was used for the so-called 'Majority Text' or MT (a flood of Greek language copies of copies with their own redactions, additions and deletions, three of which eventually ended up on Tyndale's desk in the 16th century.

Tyndale used two 13th century completely unreliable copies of the Majority Text to create what is known as Textus Receptus or TR. Tyndale used Latin Vulgate Bible as the source of those parts missing Greek text, and even translated part of the John's Revelation from Latin into Greek (with multiple errors!) and passed his TR as a "genuine Greek text."

TR was, in turn, used by the English as a "genuine" Greek text (!) to make the (in)famous King James Bible that all the English speaking countries use as 'true' word of God!

Care to hear more?

[kawaii]

I didn’t realize Greek was the standard language of Jerusalem at the time of Christ; especially given the mixture of Roman soldiers and fervent Hebrews.

1. as has long since been established even Jewish rabbis note that Hebrew was only known in the temple during Christ time and even in Jerusalem it was a minority language.

2. If you have a problem with Greek let's just throw out all the gospels that we only have Greek copies of! Then the prots can get around to denying Christ the way the jews still do!