Posted on 10/04/2004 8:51:07 PM PDT by Destro
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORTHODOXY AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM?
By Father Michael Azkoul
St. Catherine Mission, St. Louis, MO
Copyright, 1994 St. Nectarios American Orthodox Church
Reproduced with permission from The Orthodox Christian Witness, Vol. XXVII (48), Vol. XXVIII (6) and (8), 1994.
May not be reproduced without permission
(Excerpt) Read more at ocf.org ...
If I want to know what the Orthodox believe, I will ask an Orthodox.
If I want to know what a Roman Catholic believes, I will ask a Roman Catholic, not an Orthodox.
This is an offensive piece aimed at demeaning Catholics.
Do you really want to start this fight?
Who cares?
Indeed, who does care?
I shouldn't be too concerned about what this fellow says. He is part of one of those "true" churches in communion with no one. Trust me, guys like this have as much contempt for canonical Orthodoxy and the Patriarchs as they do for Roman Catholicism and the Pope. Nothing to see here.
Well, the article didn't offend ME at any rate. I thought it was interesting.
I think that the author was spot on, too, when he said that in the West we tend to search for God by studying his handiwork in nature.
Of course, the author of the article intended to refer to the scientific-mindedness of Catholicism as an article of criticism, but he did accurately portray the difference. To me, the scientific-mindedness of Catholicism and its rational approach to finding God through his handiwork in nature is THE most glorious achievement of the faith, because it tends to prove God to a doubting world.
That certainly was the case for me. People have been slamming a book down in front of me all of my life and shouting "Believe that!", but I could not take them seriously. HOW? It is not believable, taken as it is written. And interpreting it through the encrustation of 2000 years of culture does not improve it for me either. On the other hand, starting with the idea of God itself, and proving God by the preponderance of the evidence through science, this is extremely compelling - at least it was to ME anyway, and I cannot be alone in this regard. Once science - the study of God's handiwork - leads towards God, then the possibility that there might be truth, after all, in that old book and those hoary old cultural traditions becomes a possibility, becomes something that COULD be true. Then the old maxim "The Bible teaches you how to go to heaven, not how the heaven's go" sounds less like a desperate rearguard apologetic, and more like an objective statement of fact.
Now, elsewhere we have discussed how a lot of people really, really hate the approach of finding God by studying nature. And they needn't follow it. But that has been ONE (only) of the methods used by the Catholic Church, pretty much alone, and IT is the reason that Catholicism was able to convince me while no other approach to God was ever able to do so.
The very thing that the author of the article obviously finds distasteful, the rational, scientific and naturalist element in one prominent wing of Catholicism, is the reason I am a Christian at all. Which is why I simultaneously appreciate that the author of the article you posted was able to put his finger on it precisely, and also why I of course completely disagree with his implication that the scientific rationalism of the West is a blight on the faith. It was the PATH to my own, and therefore I consider the scientific rational mind of the Catholic Church to be its greatest glory and the crowning achievement among its human endeavors. Obviously I think that it is all inspired by the Holy Spirit, specifically to reach out to people like me and bring us into the fold.
So, thanks for the article. It lays out many differences between East and West. For my part, I am certainly happy that the West has that rationalistic scientific strain in it, because that was the strongest evangelism it could have with men like me.
Basically it began with a disagreement over who would rule the world.
Since we aren't allowed in the archives we don't really know all the details.
Definitely slander, definitely slander, yeah, slander, definitely slander
(For those who don't get it, Rain Man was an "idiot savant." Only PC types have stricken the term idiot, so they now say he was a "savant" which is stupid because "savant" means wise man, or philosopher.)
This was a most helpful and instructive article on understanding the Orthodox view. Many thanks for posting it!
Azkoul is best on Augustine, I think.
Just make sure you don't miss out on the food at our bazaars.
They forgot to mention it here, but we ARE the best cooks of all the churches. Hands down.
sa·vant ( P ) Pronunciation Key (s-vänt) n. A learned person; a scholar.
Idiot savants are not the same thing - but for some reason in your mind you confused the two words - maybe you wanted to think the Orthodox would slander the Catholics?
Simply put Catholics rely on rationality - logic - Aristotelian models to describe the nature of God. The Orthodox take the view that God is unknowable and undescribable - a mystery that can't be understood by man.
So sorry - not slander.
No, destro, saying that Catholicism doesn't worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was the slander.
And you'll notice I DID actually write "'savant' means wise man, or philosopher." I was only noting how stupid it is that PC psychologists have now taken it to refer to a mental disease related to autism and retardation.
Ask a Jew if he can know the God of Abraham and then ask a Latin Rite scholar if they can know the unkowable. The wording I admit is a little harsh - I would have said - 'they do not understand teh nature of God in the same way anymore'.
Sorry, it's a false straw man. The Catholic Church does infer much more about the nature of God than the Orthodox, this is true, but that does not mean that the Catholic Church is worshipping a different God.
You place yourself in a logical trap. If you allow that the Catholic Church may be correct in its inferrences, than you cannot assert that the Catholic Church has even so much as a heretical belief. If you allow that the Church must be incorrect, than you are making a positive assertion of precisely the same sort that you claim the Catholic Church is making.
The most that can properly be said is that the Catholic Church is making unwarranted speculation that causes an unnecessary danger of heresy. But that would be a very level-headed statement which would then require examples to support it, and not the sort of gleeful Catholic-bashing that many of the Orthodox at this site like to engage in.
Many Catholics see disagreement and an attempt to explain such diff as bashing, though.
Just declaring that tha Roman Catholic Church worship some other God is hardly a reasonable attempt to explain our differences. That assertion within the article was slander, pure and simple. The language would have been outrageous, even if applied to Mormons. To describe theological differences in terms of what constitutes idolatry is far beyond the pale.
If you wish to enlighten people, rather than ignite a flame war, please find more temperate sources!
If we realy understood all that we couldn't call it faith.
Fair enough. But this about how the Orthodox see the Catholics and what they think of the Latins Rite. That was the pint of the ost - agree or disagree is not the point.
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