Posted on 03/05/2005 7:15:51 AM PST by AAABEST
***You make the blunderous mistake that Aquinas and Augustine are using unpurified philosophy.***
Paul did his work WITHOUT RECOURSE to philosophy..
"For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom (READ "PHILOSOPHY"), lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (READ "CHRISTIANITY + PHILOSOPHY = POWERLESS CHRISTIANITY")
Are Aquinas and Augustine better expositors of the grace of God than Paul?
Are Aquinas and Augustine better expositors of the grace of God than Paul?
Expositors of the grace of God? Since Aquinas and Augustine were also ordained they were at least his equal in being vessels for grace. As far as explaining the Gospels? Yes. They were exactly who should be explaining what St. Paul meant to those who don't understand him. And St. Peter agrees that Paul was not self explanatory but needed someone learned to explain him. "And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you: 16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; ****in which are certain things hard to be understood,**** which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction."
It's simple. Aquinas and Augustine were fully capable of explaining the Gospel with words of eloquent wisdom without emptying the Cross of it's power. Paul merely admits that he is not capable of doing this. Just as Moses needed Aaron to speak for him. Paul provided several inspired Scriptures that would require the learned to decipher properly. Nowhere does Paul condemn anyone who can do what he can't.
Are you Catholic? Because your position that man can no nothing by reason is condemned as a heresy called "traditionalism" from the 18th century. Also called "fideism".
No. They didn't sit around in the dark. They invented heresies in trying to understand these hard sayings. The Church spent centuries wrestling with these issues until Aquinas was able to define and catalog concepts that would carry an explanation of Divine Revelation that would provide protection against heresy. Aquinas was quite possibly the greatest intellect ever encased in a mortal and exclusively human frame. His achievement has yet to find an equal in human enterprise. Paul's explanation of the Eucharist was straightforward, Augustine had to answer deeper questions, so his answers were deeper. Aquinas got to deal with the deepest accessible parts of the mysteries. So, his answers are the most complete. Nothing added, no difference in what is being discussed, yet Aquinas reasoned things down to a base concept that holds logically and denies nothing. It's miraculous and so beautiful.
I don't see much Greek philosophy in Luke. The closest you'll get is the "logos" in John.
I didn't say that you'll find Greek philosophy in them. But you can use the Augustinian or Thomistic models to understand Luke or any other Scripture. Just as you can used "pagan" Mathematics to understand the architecture of the Temple, the Ark of the Covenant or Noah's Ark. God forbid Pythagoras actually stumbled onto a truth that would help one understand something Divine. Why stop there? Why did any of the Apostles speak other languages beside Syriac? I mean, why should they have spoken the pagan languages of Latin and Greek?
Actually whether or not it is the Medici family pictured in an accurate depiction is irrelevant to the quality of the work. That is an extra-artistic factoid, that has nothing to do with the subject or the subject matter. Renoir painted his son in dresses and with long hair so he would look like a little girl. The paintings are of little girls with hair that curls in conformance with the composition of the picture. The fact that it is Jean Renoir or Chaim Soutine's Mother modeling is irrelevant to the work.
The quality has never been the issue. The issue is the inspiration and influence of the Church. Botticelli's "Adoration" glorifies the de Medici's as much as the infant Jesus. Botticelli painted himself amid the group too, another tendancy of humanistic influences, self-promotion.
Dante of course had Popes and bishops of his day burning in Hell.
Michealangelo in his "Last Judgement" placed bishops, cardinals and prelates as part of the damned. One in particular getting his crotch bitten by a snake.
Some of the gargoyles on Notre Dame Cathedral are based on the taskmasters in charge of the artists.
Those are all creative incidentals that have nothing to do with the subject or the subject matter. The fact that its the Medici family is no more valuable than whether a painting was rescued from a monastery fire. That's all just incidental trivia.
By the way, how do you know Botticelli was purely involved in self-promotion by placing himself in his paintings?
Mirrors cost a lot less than models. Sometimes it is most expedient for the artist to use items and people that are closest to him. Perhaps it was easier to do a great work if the Medici family was used as models. Maybe they were tasteless and needed to be distracted by the artist. So, he put them in it to shut them up as far as criticism goes.
That is all speculation. Any story can be made up to explain the various motivations.
Apparently not.
Apparently so. The war ended in '45. Vatican II closed in '65. In the twenty years between, the Catholic Church was at its zenith with vocations and schools and hospitals and missions and church attendance and baptisms and conversions and the faith itself at an all time high. Bishop Fulton Sheen was more popular on tv than Milton Berle. On the Waterfront and Sound of Music were huge hits. Within ten years of the close of the Council, the Church had precipitously imploded. Now it's the subject of Hollywood jeers.
***Within ten years of the close of the Council, the Church had precipitously imploded. Now it's the subject of Hollywood jeers.***
These effects must be due in part to something else.
Protestants are also the subject of jeers.
(Side note: you may very occasionally get a sympathetic Catholic priest role. You will never see a Protestant minister portraied as anything but a lunitic or murderer.)
*** Since Aquinas and Augustine were also ordained they were at least his equal in being vessels for grace.***
Amazing! I've never heard anyone come close to claiming that.
***Paul merely admits that he is not capable of doing this.***
No, he says he specifically avoids it. No offense meant, but you are twisting what he said to the breaking point. Look at the verse again.
"For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."
He was not discarding "words of eloquent wisdom" becuase he wasn't capable of using them, but because reliance on them would strip the Gospel of its "spiritual" power. He speaks further about this here (1 Cor 2)...
"... And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual."
***Are you Catholic? Because your position that man can no nothing by reason is condemned as a heresy called "traditionalism" from the 18th century. Also called "fideism".***
No, I am an evangelical. An before you go branding me a fideistic heretic :) - may statement was...
"There is no such thing as reason alone. Christianity is a revealed religion."
Which is basically a restatement of...
"For since, ... the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe."
Pretty clear. The world did not come to know God through "wisdom" so God sent men to reveal his will. Logic and reason didn't do it, so God brought men truth in the power of the Spirit.
"These effects must be due in part to something else. Protestants are also the subject of jeers. "
Just the opposite. These effects are due to the exact same cause--modernism. The New Theology was a virus that passed from the mainline churches to Catholicism by way of the Lutherans in Germany. The German bishops led the charge in Vatican II. Lutherans participated in the fabrication of the Novus Ordo.
Look at which churches have been losing steam since the sixties: the liberal ones. The mainline Protestant pews are empty, not the pews of evangelicals. Nor are the pews of conservative Catholic churches empty. It is liberalism, catering to the world, that destroys the faith, nothing else.
When I was in the seminary back in the 80s, there was much visiting back-and-forth between seminarians of mainline churches and ours. They were subject to the very same deconstruction of Scripture as we. They had their Raymond Browns and their Walter Kaspers. So it wasn't "something else" as you say. The cause for collapse was the same--accommodation to modernity at the expense of faith.
***I didn't say that you'll find Greek philosophy in them.***
Point is, if Greek philosophy were necessary for understanding the scriptures correctly then God would have incorporated it into the text - which He did not.
***Just as you can used "pagan" Mathematics to understand the architecture of the Temple, the Ark of the Covenant or Noah's Ark. ***
Good illustration! Let me use it for my purpose. You can use geometry to understand the temple but this is akin to a person using their knowlege of bookbinding to study the scripture. You any know all the details of the angles and lengths of the temple but this can not help you penetrate the spiritual meaning of the temple.
Only the Spirit of God can open a persons eyes such that they can see and spiritually appropriate the truths incorporated into the design of the temple and by means of those truths come to "see" God with the eyes of the heart. It is the Spirit that gives life.
***I mean, why should they have spoken the pagan languages of Latin and Greek?***
For the sake of mass communication! Or as someone else said, "Who lights a candle and puts it under a basket?"
Just to make my previous point clear--Hollywood respects success. As long as the mainline Protestant Churches and the Catholic Church were flourishing and influential, Hollywood was respectful. As soon as Hollywood sensed weakness and the loss of influence, it began to do what came naturally--go on the attack. It is the way of the world.
The visible Church would not have crumbled so swiftly unless the rot had been already well advanced. It's the very definition of a healthy Church to have been able to absorb assaults like this. That this never happened ought to tell you something.
***Hollywood respects success. As long as the mainline Protestant Churches and the Catholic Church were flourishing and influential, Hollywood was respectful.***
Interesting point. I've also learned that when the Church is spiritually strong it will influence the world. When the Church is spiritually weak it will be influenced by the world.
***Just the opposite. These effects are due to the exact same cause--modernism.***
Though I believe that is a definite factor I wonder if it might not also be attributable to something else - sin and compromise in the life of the real believers.
We know the Church is composed of wheat and tares, the saved and the lost. Churches which preach modernism have a strong appeal for who don't really want to know the truth. Specifically the truth about themselves and their sin before a holy God.
Modernism is mainly composed of tares (no doubt with a few confused stalks of wheat thrown in for good measure!) As such they are "non-players" in the true game - the invisible game on the spiritual plane. They are not really on God's team.
Those people who truly believe, who have accepted the message and the rule of Jesus in their lives no matter what the personal cost - these are the ones who are spiritually alive and they are on God's "team" so to speak.
Now the question is why is God's "team" loosing? Could it be because those who truly belong to God are not living for Him as they know they should? Could it be also that they are spiritually "alseep" having been seduced by the cares and riches of the Western world and have allowed sin and compromise to go undealt with in their lives?
When is the last time you heard a priest or minister strongly rebuke sin in the lives of his congregation?
A side note. God's "team" seems to be winning in the third world (Ex. China has seen the growth of the underground church from appx 900,000 to 100,000,000 in a one hunderd year period - Africa has a similar growth rate.)
I have two reasons for disagreeing with your analysis. First, sin and compromise have characterized the people of God from the beginning. There never was a time when the attractions of sin were not a factor. The early Christians had all they could do to keep their young away from gladiator shows and lascivious theatrical productions. Second, the fall-off was too precipitous to attribute it to anything other than a widespread adoption of liberal theologies. In many ways evangelicals have the very same gripes as traditional Catholics.
*** The early Christians had all they could do to keep their young away from gladiator shows and lascivious theatrical productions.***
This is interesting. Could you point me towards a resource for reading more on this issue.
***Second, the fall-off was too precipitous to attribute it to anything other than a widespread adoption of liberal theologies.***
Making your point, liberal theology is not widely accepted in Asia/Africa. They are stong because the simply open the Bible and obey what they read.
***In many ways evangelicals have the very same gripes as traditional Catholics.***
Yes, and we've been fighting it since the mid 1800's.
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