Posted on 07/07/2004 7:16:03 AM PDT by ultima ratio
They have encountered there own deforming problems.
One is the fact that they have generally adopted the Biblically-condemned Onanism of contraception as morally justified and even desirable.
Another is the crass commercialization of Christianity through the "name-it-and-claim-it" school of simony.
Another is the unbiblical idea that the demonic "speaking in tongues" such that no one understands what you are saying is analogous to the Biblical speaking in tongues of the Apostles wherein everyone understands what you say.
Another is the anti-Christian Arian heresy known as Oneness Pentecostalism.
Another is the LaHaye marketing tool of "secret rapture" and a third coming.
All these are of very recent provenance.
Yeah, theologically and morally, there are problems, but that doesn't seem to be stopping their growth in numbers.
Or it could be to suggest that the Pope is a human being who sometimes makes prudential errors of judgment and who can be taken advantage of by dishonest people.
I don't know what phenomonology posits, but to say that it is not a 'shifting thing' but is imperfect because we are imperfect, (and it depends on how we perceive it) tells me that whatever it expounds should not be an article of faith.
No one is suggesting making it an article of faith. What is being suggested is making it a tool of speculative theology, as St. Thomas made use of Aristotle and St. Augustine made use of Plotinus.
Don't we have real things to iron out, rather than the subjectivity of of something as elusive as quicksilver?
Christians have minds as well as souls and bodies, and it is an inevitable tragedy that sometimes they will be caught doing things like thinking carefully about philosophical matters.
The Catholic Church is growing, not shrinking.
It would be growing faster if Catholics in Europe and North America had not fallen away in such numbers in the 1970s, but apparently African Catholics never got the memo about how much more dynamic The Church of Tim LaHaye is than Christ's Church.
Wrong. You trust that he is the Pope and you maintain the Faith. When that man, however, does things that are so damaging to the Faith that his actions peril millions of souls, you take a step back and question. That's all I'm doing is questioning. I would like to believe that he is the Pope, but I have yet to see a srong argument that he is. Just lot's of name-calling and conjecture. That makes me even more suspicious.
"Your claim of Heresy is unfounded and is based on nothing but a SSPX pamphlet."
What pamphlet might that be, pray tell? Was Assisi I and II an example of syncretism or indifferentism? Do I need a pamphlet to tell me what to think about something so obviously unprecedented and scandalous? Should Catholic popes be praying with animists and bragging about it in their diaries? Should a Catholic Pontiff, at a papal audience, be giving Communion to a woman who is a prominent activist for abortion? Or kiss the ring of the Archbishop of Canterbury who lacks any standing as a real cleric? Do I need pamphlets to tell me how to think about these actions? It seems to me if anyone's not doing his own thinking, it's yourself. Look at the photos of Hindu priests using our altars at Fatima to pray to their false gods. Who allows this desecration? Do you need somebody in Rome to tell you this is not as it should be? If so, you've got a long wait coming.
Prove that your mother and dad were married.
Yes he is.
The concept that Christ, through His Incarnation, is closely united with all creation is hardly an heretical notion.
You may note that nowhere in the above article does Derksen criticize the idea that "Christ, through His Incarnation, is closely united with all creation ," so the fact that it is not a "heretical notion" is not relevant to the current discussion. You are merely arguing with strawmen instead of with the actual substance of the debate.
I need hardly point out that phenomenology began as Husserl's effort to return to Plato. I personally prefer the Thomistic/Aristotelian approach to moderate realism but I cannot pretend, as Derksen does, that the Augustinian/Platonist view is either illegitimate or unfruitful.
You may not wish to argue it, but Derksen makes a very convincing argument that Husserl's phenomenology is "illegitimate or unfruitful." It is false and it is destructive. If you wish to take the opposite position, where is the fruit? Nor is it correct to conflate Plato and St. Augustine as you have done. Augustine was a severe critic of Platonism, especially the neo-Platonism of his day, but Plato himself as well.
One would be more justified in arguing that Derksen's position, which implies that Christ is not united to the world he created, smells of Marcionism, Manichaeanism and Catharism.
If that's the case, then perhaps you ought to argue it instead of simply throwing around innuendos and veiled accusations of heresies.
I never claimed they were.
Not from "the pope" per se, but from Karol Wojtyla whom he considers to be invalid. If someone considered Clinton a traitor to his country, that wouldn't mean that they wanted US citizens to withdraw their allegiance to the presidency, just that the current incumbent was an illegitimate office holder.
He may pretend that the Holy See is vacant and that he will completely obey any new Pope who is elected to Mario Derksen's personal standards and who teaches in the way that Mario Derksen prefers, but in essence he claims that he is able to decide when and under what circumstances he will obey the Pope.
This is a misrepresentation. If you are going to argue with his position, at least represent it fairly.
Either the Pope can command obedience or he can't.
A general can command the obedience of his soldiers, but Benedict Arnold was a traitor.
Additionally, his logic is thoroughly flawed in its basic assumption: Church discipline is not infallible but prudential.
He's not talking about Church discipline but about basic Catholic theology.
Derksen is specifically citing a passage in which the Pope argues this position as evidence of the Pope's allegedly heterodox humanism.
This is not a straw man. Derksen is creating a straw man by saying that man is not a legitimate subject of revelation and that therefore statements about man qua man are somehow suspect.
You may not wish to argue it, but Derksen makes a very convincing argument that Husserl's phenomenology is "illegitimate or unfruitful."
There are indeed problems with phenomenology, as there are with Aristotelianism, Platonism, Kantianism and every other purely philosophical system.
If you wish to take the opposite position, where is the fruit?
Husserl's own phenomenology inspired him to accept Christ as God. Husserl's best student was St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross who converted from atheism to become a Carmelite nun and who died heroically in the Holocaust.
Her writings contain a moving phenomenological investigation of the Incarnation and the meaning of the Cross.
Nor is it correct to conflate Plato and St. Augustine as you have done.
Augustine argued his points using the vocabulary and analytical tools of neoplatonism. One need only read his De trinitate to see how obvious this influence is.
Augustine was a severe critic of Platonism, especially the neo-Platonism of his day, but Plato himself as well.
And St. Thomas did not accept Aristotle uncritically either. Likewise, Pope John Paul II does not uncritically accept everything Husserl thought.
If that's the case, then perhaps you ought to argue it instead of simply throwing around innuendos and veiled accusations of heresies.
Derksen's statement that Christ only came to teach about salvation and deity and not about man is a statement that neither Marcion nor Manichaeus nor the Cathari would have any problem with. Yet it is a deeply disturbing statement for an orthodox Catholic.
That is a concise statement of why his position does not pass the smell test.
You need a scorecard so you can keep all your accusations straight. You may be thinking of the SSPX pamphlet, "Is Sedvacantism Catholic?" or the other one, "Sedevacantism: False Answer to a Real Problem," or maybe it was the SSPX article, "Pope-Sifting: Difficulties with Sedvacantism." The SSPX is officially NOT sedevacantist and in fact back in 1983 they kicked out 9 sedevacantist priests who went on to form the Society of Saint Pius V.
Luckily, Mario Derksen's personal considerations of validity and invalidity have no theological or moral weight.
This is a misrepresentation. If you are going to argue with his position, at least represent it fairly.
I have fairly represented it. Mario Derksen claims to be able to judge whether or not a given Pope is an apostate. Therefore, any legitimate Pope, in his eyes, would have to adhere to what Mario Derksen considers to be orthodoxy.
A general can command the obedience of his soldiers, but Benedict Arnold was a traitor.
An individual soldier in the ranks is not entitled to remove his obedience from his commander unless an authority legitimately constituted over that commander revokes the command.
Otherwise, it's pure insubordination.
He's not talking about Church discipline but about basic Catholic theology.
No, he's specifically adduces the 1983 CIC as his grounds for unilaterally deposing the Pope. Canon law, as I recall, is disciplinary.
Doesn't it make one wonder WHY all those previous popes didn't do so? Perhaps it wasn't appropriate for their role and position? Were the previous couple hundred pope all wrong, and did this pope finally figure out the right formula? And if so, then when are we going to see the fruits of this new discovery about the pope's primary responsibility?
Her writing also contains a lot of totally unacceptable material. I cannot understand how she could have been approved for canonization. Perhaps she retracted all her errors. Or perhaps her canonization was intended to be a vicarious "baptism" of Husserl.
"The encyclical does not say that the Church must take the path of modernity - it says that the Church must follow the steps that Christ traced."
The minute the Pope says something like "man is the primary way the Church must follow", he is speaking gobbledegook. In fact, it is God who shows the way. But he doesn't say this or seem to mean it. He doesn't say Jesus is the way. He says just the opposite, that Jesus himself followed OUR way. He is saying it is our own humanity in its diverse relationships that must PRIMARILY show us the way. But this is nonsense. Such a course would mean that the blind would be leading the blind.
Think about it for a minute. Here's what he says: "this man is the primary route that the Church must travel in fulfilling her mission: he is the primary and fundamental way for the Church." So it's us, not God; WE'RE supposed to lead the Church--this is the literal sense of the passage.
But JPII doesn't speak literally, he speaks in circumlocutions at best. What he really seems to be suggesting is a variation of Gaudium et Spes, that human institutions and rational systems of thought must guide the Church. Fine. It's done so in the past. But this way requires being clear about where we ourselves have been and where we are going. We have to know who we are as a Church and be rooted in our own Tradition. I don't see that with this Pope. I see him launching out into new territories--without any indication he knows where he's going.
That's just one of several reasons why it is irrelevant to the discussion of JPII's phenomenological personalism. So who dragged that into the discussion anyway?
I have fairly represented it. Mario Derksen claims to be able to judge whether or not a given Pope is an apostate.
That's not even mentioned in the article.
An individual soldier in the ranks is not entitled to remove his obedience from his commander unless an authority legitimately constituted over that commander revokes the command. Otherwise, it's pure insubordination.
I believe it's Catholic theology that a soldier can and must disobey any orders which are inherently immoral. For example, a soldier cannot follow orders to kill defenseless civilians. He has to refuse obedience on the spot. Otherwise he'll be considered a war criminal (assuming his side loses the war). Do you support a German soldier who followed orders to kill inmates in concentration camps? Should they have continued to obey orders until some higher authority removed their generals from command?
No, he's specifically adduces the 1983 CIC as his grounds for unilaterally deposing the Pope. Canon law, as I recall, is disciplinary.
Again, that's not mentioned in the article, so you're bringing in lots of unrelated material. Secondly, Canon Law very often contains statements of Catholic doctrine in addition to disciplinary material.
She was not a Catholic her whole life and when she became one she was just learning. Nothing in her convent writings appears "totally unacceptable" to me.
I cannot understand how she could have been approved for canonization.
I believe you.
Perhaps she retracted all her errors.
Or perhaps her "errors" weren't errors at all, or perhaps the original German did not convey the sense you extracted from the translation.
Or perhaps her canonization was intended to be a vicarious "baptism" of Husserl.
Or perhaps you're grasping at straws.
Here is a person who gave her life in conformity to the suffering of Christ, endured horrors we can't imagine with an unshaken devotion to Jesus, and you think it was all a conspiracy to to "baptize" Husserl.
You disappoint me.
You originally wrote: "Not from "the pope" per se, but from Karol Wojtyla whom he considers to be invalid."
I responded: "Luckily, Mario Derksen's personal considerations of validity and invalidity have no theological or moral weight."
And now you tell me it's irrelevant? Why did you make that point if you did not want it addressed?
But it was mentioned in your comments to which I was responding.
I believe it's Catholic theology that a soldier can and must disobey any orders which are inherently immoral.
Of course, but I don't think anyone was arguing that the Pope was commanding Catholics to commit sins.
Again, that's not mentioned in the article, so you're bringing in lots of unrelated material.
Again, you discussed these issues above, so I don't know why you don't want to discuss them now.
Secondly, Canon Law very often contains statements of Catholic doctrine in addition to disciplinary material.
Mario's on the topic introduces the novel claim that Church disciplinary norms are infallible.
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