Posted on 05/11/2005 10:04:08 AM PDT by NYer
It has to be one of the strangest things in the world: So many Christians who love Jesus with all their hearts recoil in fear at the mention of His mother's name, while many who do love her find themselves tongue-tied when asked to explain why.
Most of the issues people have with Mary are really issues about something else. "Where is the Assumption of Mary in the Bible?" isn't really a question about Mary. It's a question about the validity of Sacred Tradition and the authority of the Church. "Why should I pray to Mary?" isn't really about Mary, either. It's actually a question about the relationship of the living and the dead in Christ. "Do Catholics worship Mary?" isn't a question about Mary. It's concerned more with whether or not Catholics countenance idolatry and what the word "honor" means. And curiously enough, all these and many more objections both pay homage to and completely overlook the central truth about Mary that the Catholic Church labors to help us see: that her life, in its entirety, is a referred life. Sublime Neglect The Cultural Obstacles The Heart of Marian Doctrine Defeating Destructive Ideologies
Mary would, after all, be of absolutely no consequence to us if not for her Son. It is because she is the mother of Jesus Christ that she matters to the world at all. If He hadn't been born, you never would have heard of her. John, with characteristic economy of expression, captures this referred life in her own words: "Do whatever He tells you" (Jn 2:5). And, of course, if this were all the Church had to say about her, Evangelicals would be more than happy to let her refer us to Jesus and be done with it. What baffles so many non-Catholics is the Church's tendency to keep referring us to her. "Ad Iesum per Mariam!" we say, to which many non-Catholics nervously respond, "Isn't Christianity supposed be about a relationship with Jesus Christ? Why do Catholics honor Mary so much?"
That question sounded reasonable — right up until another question began to bother me: If Catholics honor Mary too much, exactly how do we Evangelicals honor her "just enough"? For the reality was that my native evangelicalism recoiled from any and all mention of Mary.
This was odd. After all, Evangelicals could talk all day about Paul and never feel we were "worshipping" him or giving him "too much honor." We rightly understood that God's Word comes to us through St. Paul, and there's no conflict between the two (even though Paul exhibits more character flaws than Mary).
Yet the slightest mention of Mary by a Catholic immediately brought a flood of warnings, hesitations, scrutinies of her lack of faith (allegedly demonstrated in Mark 3:21), and even assertions that Jesus was less pleased with her than he was with His disciples (because he called her "Woman," not "Mom"; and because He commended His own disciples as "my brother and sister and mother" (Mk 3:35)). And all this was despite the fact that not just God's word (e.g. the Magnificat), but God's Word, came to us through Mary (Jn 1:14). As Evangelicals we could say, "If not for Paul, the Gospel would never have reached the Gentiles." But we froze up if somebody argued that, "If not for Mary, the Gospel would never have reached the earth." Suddenly, a flurry of highly speculative claims about how "God would simply have chosen somebody else!" would fill the air, as though Mary was a mere incubation unit, completely interchangeable with any other woman on earth. "No Paul, no Gospel for the Gentiles" made perfect sense. But "No Mary, no incarnation, no death, no resurrection, no salvation for the world" was just too extreme.
Indeed, from evangelical piety and preaching as it is actually practiced, one could be forgiven for getting the sense that Jesus didn't really even like His mother (like a teenager irritated because Mom just doesn't understand him). Having "Mary is No Big Deal" hammered home whenever her name was raised tended to give you the feeling that — after her brief photo-op for the Hallmark Christmas card industry — Jesus was glad to spend time away from the family, in the Temple discussing higher things. The position in evangelicalism was more or less that we should do likewise and not lavish any attention on the mother who was too dim to understand Who He was, and whom He "rebuked" by saying, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
And so, our claims to honor her "just enough" effectively boiled down to paying no shred of positive attention to her beyond singing "round yon Virgin, mother and child" each Christmas. The rest of the time it was either complete neglect or jittery assurances of her unimportance and dark warnings not to over-emphasize the woman of whom inspired Scripture said, "From this day all generations will call me blessed."
It was a startling paradigm shift to realize we treated her so allergically — and one which, I have since noticed, isn't unusual for converts. Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society, told me once that when he was still hanging back from the Church because of Mary, a blunt priest he knew asked him, "Do you believe her soul magnifies the Lord? It's right there in Scripture." Ahlquist reflexively answered back, "Of course I do! I know the Bible!" But even as he replied he was thinking to himself, "I never really thought of that before." It can be a disorienting experience.
But, in fact, it is right there in the Bible. Her soul magnifies the Lord, and from that day to this all generations have called her blessed. So why, when we Evangelicals looked at Jesus, did we never look at Him through the divinely appointed magnifying glass? Why were we so edgy about calling her "blessed" and giving her any honor? That realization was my first clue that it was, perhaps, Catholics who were simply being normal and human in honoring Mary, while we Evangelicals were more like teetotalers fretting that far too much wine was being drunk at the wedding in Cana.
Part of the problem, I came to realize, was that evangelical fears about Mary are visceral and not entirely theological. Indeed, much of the conflict between Catholics and Evangelicals is cultural, not theological. Evangelical culture (whether you're a man or a woman) is overwhelmingly masculine, while Catholic culture (again, whether you're a man or a woman) is powerfully feminine. And the two groups often mistake their cultural differences for theological ones.
The Catholic approach tends to be body-centered, Eucharistic, and contemplative. Prayer, in Catholic culture, is primarily for seeking union with God. Evangelical approaches to God tend to be centered on Scripture, verbal articulation of belief, mission, and on the Spirit working in power. Prayer, in such a culture, is primarily for getting things done. Both are legitimate Christian ways of approaching the Gospel. Indeed, they should both be part of the Catholic approach to the Gospel. But because of these unconscious differences Evangelicals and Catholics often clash about culture while they think they're debating theology. The feminine spirituality of the Catholic can regard the masculine evangelical approach as shallow, noisy, and utilitarian, lacking an interior life. Meanwhile, Catholic piety can be seen by Evangelicals as a cold, dead, ritualistic, biblically ignorant, and cut off from real life. Thus, Evangelicals frequently criticize the Catholic life as a retreat from reality into rituals and rote prayers.
Not surprisingly, the heroes of the two camps are (for Evangelicals) the Great Human Dynamo of Apostolic Energy, St. Paul; and (for Catholics) the great icon of Contemplative Prayer Issuing in Incarnation, the Blessed Virgin Mary. As an Evangelical, I found Paul much easier to appreciate, since he was "biblical" — he wrote much of the New Testament, after all. You could talk about Paul since he'd left such a significant paper trail. Not so with Mary. Apart from the Magnificat and a couple remarks here and there — plus, of course, the infancy narratives — she didn't appear to occupy nearly as much psychic space for the authors of the New Testament as she did for Catholics. Marian devotion looked like a mountain of piety built on a molehill of Scripture.
Looks, however, can be deceiving. For as I got to know the Bible better, it became obvious to me that the authors of Scripture were not nearly as jittery about Mary as my native evangelicalism. Furthermore, they accorded to her honors which looked a great deal more Catholic than evangelical.
Luke, for instance, likens her to the Ark of the Covenant in recording that the Holy Spirit "overshadowed" her. The same word in Greek is used to describe the way the Shekinah (glory of God) overshadowed the tabernacle in Luke 1:35. Likewise, John makes the same connection between Mary and the Ark of the Covenant when he announces in Revelation 11:19-12:2:
Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant was seen within His temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.
The chapter goes on to describe the woman as giving birth to a male child who rules the nations with an iron scepter and who is almost devoured by a great red dragon.
As an Evangelical, my own tradition found it remarkably easy to detect bar codes, Soviet helicopters, the European Common Market, and the Beatles encoded into the narrative of Revelation. But when Catholics suggested that the woman of Revelation might have something to do with the Blessed Virgin occupying a place of cosmic importance in the grand scheme of things, this was dismissed as incredible. Everyone knew that the woman of Revelation was really the symbolic Virgin Daughter of Zion giving birth to the Church. A Jewish girl who stood at the pinnacle of the Old Covenant, summed up the entirety of Israel's mission and gave flesh to the Head of the Church saying, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word" — what could she possibly have to do with those images? Why, that would suggest that she was the Virgin Daughter of Zion and the Flower of her People, the Model Disciple, the Icon of the Church, the Mother of Jesus and of all those who are united with Him by faith and...
Come to think of it, Scripture was looking rather Catholic after all.
That was the revolutionary thought that made it possible for me to press on, as a new Catholic, to find out what the Church was trying to get at with her Marian teaching. In coming to understand this, it seemed to me, I'd come a long way toward understanding why Mary figures so prominently, not merely in the heads, but in the hearts of Catholics.
The first question that arises, of course, is, "Why Marian dogma at all?" Why not just dogmas about Christ and let Catholics think what they like about Mary? Why bind consciences here?
The answer is that Catholics do think what they like — not only about Mary, but about lots of things. And sometimes they think deeply erroneous things. When they do, and that thought imperils some revealed truth to the point it threatens the integrity of the Church's witness, the Church will, from time to time, define its doctrine more precisely. This is a process that's already at work in the New Testament (cf. Acts 15), and it continues until the return of Christ.
So, for instance, in the fifth century there arose (yet again) the question of just who Jesus is. It was a question repeated throughout antiquity and, in this case, an answer to the question was proposed by the Nestorians. They argued that the mortal man Jesus and the Logos, or Second Person of the Trinity, were more or less two persons occupying the same head. For this reason, they insisted that Mary could not be acclaimed (as she had been popularly acclaimed for a very long time) as Theotokos, or God-bearer. Instead, she should only be called Christotokos, or Christ-bearer. She was, they insisted, the Mother of Jesus, not of God.
The problem with this was that it threatened the very witness of the Church and could even lead logically to the notion that there were two Sons of God, the man Jesus and the Logos who was sharing a room with Him in His head. In short, it was a doorway to theological chaos over one of the most basic truths of the Faith: that the Word became flesh, died, and rose for our sins.
So the Church formulated its response. First, Jesus Christ is not two persons occupying the same head. He is one person possessing two natures, human and divine, joined in a hypostatic union. Second, it was appropriate to therefore call Mary Theotokos because she's the Mother of the God-Man. When the God-Man had His friends over for lunch, He didn't introduce Mary saying, "This is the mother of my human nature." He said, "This is my mother."
Why did the Church do this? Because, once again, Mary points to Jesus. The dogma of the Theotokos is a commentary on Jesus, a sort of "hedge" around the truth about Jesus articulated by the Church. Just as Nestorianism had tried to attack the orthodox teaching of Christ through Mary (by forbidding the veneration of her as Theotokos), now the Church protected that teaching about Christ by making Theotokos a dogma. That is a vital key to understanding Marian dogmas: They're always about some vital truth concerning Jesus, the nature of the Church, or the nature of the human person.
This is evident, for instance, in the definition of Mary as a Perpetual Virgin (promulgated in 553 at the Council of Constantinople). This tradition isn't so much explicitly attested as reflected in the biblical narrative. Yes, we must grant that the biblical narrative is ambiguous in that it speaks of Jesus's "brothers" (but does it mean "siblings" or merely "relatives"?). However, other aspects of the biblical narrative strongly suggest she remained a virgin.
For instance, Mary reacts with astonishment at the news that she, a woman betrothed, will bear a son. If you are at a wedding shower and tell the bride-to-be, "You're going to have cute kids" and she responds "How can that be?" you can only conclude one of two things: she either doesn't know about the birds and the bees or she's taken a vow of virginity. In short, the promise of a child is an odd thing for a betrothed woman to be amazed about... unless, of course, she'd already decided to remain a virgin even after marriage.
Likewise, Joseph reacts with fear at the thought of taking Mary as a wife. Why fear? Modernity assumes it was because he thought her guilty of adultery, but the typical view in antiquity understood the text to mean he was afraid of her sanctity — as a pious Jew would be afraid to touch the Ark of the Covenant. After all, think of what Mary told him about the angel's words: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God."
I'm not even a pious Jew, but with words like that echoing in my ears about my wife, I'd find it easy to believe that Joseph, knowing what he did about his wife, would have chosen celibacy.
"But nothing is sure, based on the text alone. It's still ambiguous," says the critic. Right. The biblical text alone doesn't supply an unambiguous answer to this or a myriad of other questions, including "Is the Holy Spirit God?," "How do you contract a valid marriage?," and "Can you be a polygamist?" But the Tradition of the Church in union with the biblical text does supply an answer: Mary had no other children, a fact so commonly known throughout the early Church that when Jerome attacks Helvidius for suggesting otherwise, nobody makes a peep. In a Church quite capable of tearing itself to pieces over distinctions between homoousious and homoiousious, you hear the sound of crickets in response to Jerome, punctuated with the sound of other Fathers singing hymns to "Mary, Ever-Virgin." The early Church took it for granted and thought Helvidius as credible as Dan Brown.
But why a dogma about it? Because, again, Mary's life is a referred life. Her virginity, like Christ's, speaks of her total consecration to God and of our call as Christians to be totally consecrated as well. Her virginity is not a stunt or a magic trick to make the arrival of Messiah extra strange. It is, rather, a sign to the Church and of the Church. And that matters for precisely the reason I'd thought it did not matter when I was an Evangelical: because Christianity is indeed supposed be about a relationship with Jesus Christ. But a relationship necessarily involves more than one person.
It comes down to is this: Jesus can do a world of wonderful things, but there is something even Jesus cannot do: He cannot model for us what it looks like to be a disciple of Jesus. Only a disciple of Jesus can do that. And the first and best model of the disciple of Jesus is the one who said and lived "Yes!" to God, spontaneously and without even the benefit of years of training or the necessity of being knocked off a horse and blinded. And she continues to do so right through the agony of watching her Son die and the ecstasy of knowing Him raised again.
This is why the Church, like the Gospels, has always called Mary our Mother: because Mom is the best model for training children. The command to call her "Mother" comes, of course, from Jesus Himself. John doesn't record the words "Behold your mother" (Jn 19:27) because he thought his readers might be curious about domestic arrangements for childless Jewish widows. Rather, as with everything else John writes, "These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name" (Jn 20:31). In other words, he doesn't record everything about Jesus, only those things that have a significant theological meaning. This includes Christ's words to the Beloved Disciple. For the Beloved Disciple is you and not merely John. Mary is your mother and you are her child. And so we are to look to her as mother and imitate her as she imitates Christ.
This brings us to the last two (and intimately related) Marian dogmas. Given that Marian dogma is always a commentary on Christ and His Church, what is the Church saying in its dogmatic teaching that 1) Mary was preserved at the moment of her conception from the stain of all sin, both original and actual; and 2) Mary was assumed bodily into heaven at the end of her earthly existence?
The great crisis that faced the Church in the 19th century (when the Holy Spirit, doing His job of leading the Church into all truth, led the Church to promulgate the dogma of the Immaculate Conception) was the rise of several ideologies — still very much with us — that called into question the origins and dignity of the human person. Darwin said the human person was an unusually clever piece of meat whose origins were as accidental as a pig's nose. Marx said humans were mere ingredients in a vast economic historical process. Laissez-faire capitalism saw people as natural resources to be exploited and thrown away when they lost their value. Eugenics said human dignity rested on "fitness." Much of Protestantism declared humans "totally depraved," while much of the Enlightenment held up the myth of human innocence, the "noble savage," and the notion of human perfectibility through reason. Racial theory advanced the notion that the key to human dignity was the shape of your skull, the color of your skin, and your membership in the Aryan or Teutonic tribe. Freud announced that your illusion of human dignity was just a veil over fathomless depths of unconscious processes largely centering in the groin or emerging out of issues with Mom and Dad.
All these ideologies - and many others - had in common the degrading rejection of human beings as creatures made in the image of God and intended for union with God (and the consequent subjection of the human person to some sort of creature). In contrast to them all, the Church, in holding up the icon of Mary Immaculate, held up an icon of both our true origin and our true dignity. That she was sinless was a teaching as old as the hills in the Church, which had hailed her as Kecharitomene, or "full of grace," since the time of Luke, and saluted her as Panagia, or all-holy, since the early centuries of the Church. So then why did the Holy Spirit move the Church to develop and focus this immemorial teaching more clearly?
Because what needed to be said loud and clear was that we were made in the image of God and that our fallenness, though very real, does not name or define us: Jesus Christ does. We are not mere animals, statistical averages, cogs in a machine, sophisticated primordial ooze, or a jangling set of complexes, appetites, tribal totems, Aryan supermen, naturally virtuous savages, or totally depraved Mr. Hydes. We were made by God, for God. Therefore sin, though normal, is not natural and doesn't constitute our humanity. And the proof of it was Mary, who was preserved from sin and yet was more human than the lot of us. She wasn't autonomously innocent, as though she could make it without God. She was the biggest recipient of grace in the universe, a grace that made her, in a famous phrase, "younger than sin." Because of it, she was free to be what Irenaeus described as "the glory of God": a human being fully alive. And as she is, so can the grace of Christ make us.
The 19th-century ideologies didn't, however, remain in libraries and classrooms. In the 20th century, they were enacted by the powers of state, science, business, entertainment, education, and the military into programs that bore abundant fruit in such enterprises as global and regional wars, the Holocaust, the great famines, the killing fields, the "great leap forward," the sexual revolution, and the culture of death, which is still reaping a rich bounty of spiritual and physical destruction. In short, as the 19th-century philosophies assaulted the dignity and origin of the human person, so the working out of those philosophies on the ground in the 20th century assaulted the dignity and destiny of the human person.
So what did the Holy Spirit do? Once again, in 1950, in the middle of a century that witnessed the biggest assault on the human person and on the family that the world has ever seen, the Church again held up Mary as an icon of who we really are and who we are meant to become by promulgating the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. Just as the Immaculate Conception held Mary up as the icon of the divine dignity of our origins, so the Church, in teaching "that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory" was now holding her up as the icon of the divine dignity of our destiny.
The Church is repeating, in effect, that the God Who loves the world does not will that our fate be the oven, the mass grave, the abortuary, the anonymity of the factory, the brothel, the cubicle, or the street. The proper end of our life is supposed to be for us, as it already is for her, the ecstatic glory of complete union with the Triune God in eternity. Once again, God shows us something vital about our relationship to Himself through her, His greatest saint.
And that, in the end, is the point of Marian devotion and theology. Through our Lady, we see Jesus Christ reflected in the eyes of His greatest saint. But we also see "what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power in us who believe, according to the working of His great might" (Eph 1:18-19). For what He has already done for her, He will one day do also in us.
"The Apostles were the vessels through which the scriptures came into being.
These very same Apostles led the early church.
There is no discontinuity here."
I agree. The Apostles successors, the Bishops, continue this today.
Regards
***however, that might make apply to someone of another religion as well.***
No, people from other religions can not reflect the moral likeness of Christ for they are without the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God only enters one's life through hearing and believing the Gospel (think Peter and Cornelius).
***One of the primary purposes and values of an institutional church is the accurrate transmission of knowledge/wisdom/spirit.***
The purpose of the Scriptures is the accurate transmission of knowledge/wisdom/spirit in that it acts as a corrective to accidental (and purposeful) distortions introduced by human praxis and the inevitable shift that occurs across ages.
***God knows what's he's doing, this is the way He set it up, take it up with Him if you don't like it.***
Your answer indicates you submit your conscience to the authority of the RCC. Do you believe you can't recognize good and evil unless the RCC tell what it is?
Jesus tells us:
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits."
In other words, a bad pope who does bad things is a false prophet. This is not specifically a Catholic rap, but it ain't ever "God's way" to have a murder, adulterer, rapist or thug leading His people. We don't have to "take it up with Him" in that He has already told us what He thinks.
***this is a more effective way of passing on the true teachings through the great expanse of time (from practicality);***
We need to take a look at Jesus' attitude towards the Talmud.
***Galileo was prosecuted for advocating a theory that he could not prove ***
So the Church was prosecuting him for having a faulty scientific method???
***and that was seen as contrary to the scripture.***
Here's the item! He was prosecuted for advocating the Copernican system which was in conflict with Aquinas's Roman Catholic-Aristotelian cosmology.
***What spin?***
The spin I see is this, rather than take the blame and admit that the "Tradition" of the day was wrong they are trying to say the fault was with ecclesiastical figures who took the Bible too literally - as if it all wouldn't have happened if we had a lower view of the Scriptures.
Forgive me, this is a new criteria for me. Could you give me the precise attributes of "moral likeness" as you use it, and as others use it to discern whether someone has it? Is there like a list maybe?
The purpose of the Scriptures is the accurate transmission of knowledge/wisdom/spirit in that it acts as a corrective to accidental (and purposeful) distortions introduced by human praxis and the inevitable shift that occurs across ages.
I'm afraid the results of sola scriptura in Calvinism, Dispensationalism, Adventisms, de-sacramentalism, et. al... illustrates the performative error in your logic.
Your answer indicates you submit your conscience to the authority of the RCC.
I don't believe that's possible for any human, unless we have different definitions of God's law written on our hearts.
Do you believe you can't recognize good and evil unless the RCC tell what it is?
See above. (You should also keep in mind I'm a fairly recent convert.) In my experience, the Church is a valuable, very valuable help to me in these matters. "Fides et Ratio," for example on the area of transcendence and reason. The church teaching on chastity, for example, on the areas of lust and fidelity. The sacrament of eucharist and the communion of saints in the areas of the oneness of the Body of Christ. And the sacrament of reconcilliation on the realities of life striving to conform my will to that of God's.
You have it precisely backwards. I see in your question a view some have towards sin and God. That we wish to sin, but God doesn't want us to so we have to force ourselves not to sin in order that God won't zap us. No, God loves us and does not wish us to suffer, sin causes us - and others - to suffer. So God gives us many good things to help us learn and grow and turn away from sin.
Among these things is the institution, sacraments and people of my church. And those saints who went before.
I don't look at my Church to tell me right from wrong - although its teaching is excellent and detailed and consistent on these matters. No, I look to my church to help me put on the mind of Christ, to help me, in very specific ways, to more constantly be consciously aware of the presence of God.
I said "...Seems pretty clear that Jesus gave the power to bind and loosen ONLY to the Apostles and their successors, not to the entire Church.***
You asked "...Can you provide a reference for this?
Matthew 16:18 and Matthew 18:18. The power to bind and loosen is given ONLY to the Apostles, not the entire Church. Peter's office is seen to be a perpetual one due to the fact that it is associated with the "keys" and Jesus' promise that the Gates of Hell would not prevail.
1 Timothy 3:14-15 "I am writing these INSTRUCTIONS to you so that ... you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bullwark of the truth" implies that the Church has the authority to teach, admonish, and excommunicate when necessary.
1 Timothy 4:11-16 " These are the things you must insist on and teach. (The Gospel) Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers and example...give attention to public reading or the scripture, to exhorting, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you THROUGH PROPHECY WITH THE LAYING ON OF HANDS BY THE COUNCIL of elders" shows Paul reminding Timothy of the magesterial authority conferred upon him. Note, he was not one of the twelve apostles. Apostolic Succession within the Bible.
John 20:21 Jesus sends the Apostles.
2 Cor 5:20 Paul is an ambassador of Christ.
Hebrews 13:7-17 Comply with Authority over you
Romans 13:2 same as above.
Luke 10:16 "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects the one who sent me" Said to the Apostles only.
Titus 1:5 "I left you behind in Crete for this reason, so that you should put in order what remained to be done, and should appoint elders in every town, as I directed you"
2 Timothy 1:6 and 13 "For this reason I remind you (Timothy) to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of MY hands" and "Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me"
1 Cor 16:15-16 "Now, brothers and sisters, you know that members of the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints. (as are all leaders). I urge you to put yourselves at the service of such peopel and of everyone who works and toils with them."
And so forth. If we were to go into Ignatius of Antioch or Clement of Rome, we would exponentially increase the numbers of such verses that discuss Apostolic succession and authority - and they were written roughly the same time or slightly later than the last part of the NT. Nowhere in the NT does it say anything about people who are not sent to begin their own churches somewhere else. Only those sent by the Apostles, who were sent by Christ, have such authority.
Who leads the local assembly? The "Shepherd", a "teacher", a "prophet" the elders???
That is why we must rely on Apostolic Tradition and the writings in continuity with the Scriptures written at the same time as the Bible. Ignatius clearly discusses the role of the Bishop. These roles, while not set in stone the first generation, became solidified very early in Church history.
"Also there is no set order of service."
How about Acts 2:46-47. And 1 Corinthians 10,11 discuss the Eucharist more in depth.
1) Apostolic Instruction--homily explaining the readings
from Scripture - this was what the Jews did in the synagogue, too.
2) Communal Life--worshipping together as community
3) Breaking of bread at their homes--Eucharist
4) Prayers--the community praising God and having the good will of the people; prayers being prayed by all,for all;
Sounds like the Mass...
There's a body of literature available by leading historians of science, Catholic and secular. They generally agree that Galileo's attackers were the aristotelian scientists of his day, so, in part the debate was a scientific one, over the nature of demonstration (scienitfic proof) for a new explanatory model of the new data about the planets and the sun. While the preponderance of data supported heliocentrism, in Aristotelian terms, absolute demonstrative proof had not been delivered yet (indeed, was not delivered until the 20thc with a solar eclipse properly observed).
Galileo made things difficult for himself by deliberately writing not merely for his fellow academics but for a broader, popular audience, taking on what he thought were stick-in-the-mud Aristotelians. There were real philosophical issues at stake: does a scientific explanatory model offer a "really, real" total picture of truth or is it in some sense limited in scope, being, after all, a theory or explanatory model for data? Galileo was a maximalist on this score--he thought the new theory went beyond merely explanining data to deliver a new world view. He was a scientific genius and he was beginning to glimpse a new way of interpreting reality--a scientistic way. Philosophically, he was not self-evidently right but he was moving in a direction that much (not all) of modern science went. Hence modern science has often championed him against either the "old-fuddy-duddy" Aristotelians or against the hopelessly archaic Church.
But Galileo's opponents also had some serious questions about the philosophical implications of this new view of science and truth and philosophy and theology. Copernicus and Kepler did not move over into exploring these larger philosophical and theological issues. They gathered data and worked up a new theory to explain them. Galileo further developed that theory but he also spilled over into theological and philosophical matters and claimed the authority of "science" on his side. This was new, a new degree of autonomy being claimed for science in the realm of truth claims.
It should have provoked discussion. It was not (and still is not) entirely clear who was right. Galileo's philosophy, as distinct from his empirical scientific theory, is not self-evidently the best one. But his opponents also argue in silly ways sometimes and he was not always given a fair hearing. That's what John Paul II's inquiry established: Galileo did not receive due process in all aspects of the affair and the Church's officials were unjust in that way, no more, no less.
At the same time, real theological, philosophical and scientific issues were being raised in new ways and for the first time. It would have been tragic if there had not been a debate and controversy over all of it. But it was not black and white, good persecuted Galileo versus evil villainous anti-science Church--as it is portrayed in the textbooks.
You, even as a Bible-believing Protestant, as someone who presumably believes that "scientism" is not a good way to view truth-questions, as someone who, I presume, believes that the Bible has something to tell us authoritatively about Truth and that Science is not the be-all and end-all of the search for truth (Galileo was not saying that science was all of that, but he was moving in baby-steps in that direction--he meant well, he was a believing Catholic, but he didn't realize all the implications of the new scientistic philosophy he was groping toward)--someone like you should be careful trying to use the Galileo affair as a club to beat Catholics over the head with.
In the Galileo affair, you might well, as a Bible-believing Christian in a world in which scientism is rampant, have much more in common with the Catholic scholars who raised questions about Galileo's mixture of science and philosophy and theology. Not, to be sure, in common with his worst opponents who made silly arguments against him, but with some of the Catholic thinkers and theologians in the middle who saw some of the troubling implications of where he was headed but who did not buy into the silly and exaggerated arguments of others who attacked him.
What bothers me about your effort to use the Galileo affair as an effort to beat us Catholics over the head with is that your underlying animosity toward Catholicism leads to be naive and uncritical--you seize on something you don't really understand just because in the popular textbook account, it pitted evil Catholicism against virtuous, bold new science. Your visceral animosity toward us Catholics leads you to make common cause with the worst of the anti-Christian adherents of scientism, people who have it in for your own Protestant, Bible-faith just as much as they have it in for present-day traditional Catholics. Your enemy's enemy is not necessarily your friend!
And, finally, why do you have so much visceral animosity toward Catholicism? Is it really necessary to your self-worth?
That is where the fault indeed was, as well as with Galileo himself, as the encyclopedia article clearly states. The Tradition was not undermined by Copernicus, and Copernicus was not prosecuted at all. We have the same Tradition today, and we have more telescopes and scientists than we know what to do with. It was wrong for Galileo to veer into something akin to today's scientism, particularly with insufficient scientific proof. His opponents sometimes were Bible literalists and so were wrong as well, and the Church admits that.
It is however remarkable that you started on this thread demanding a literal scripture for Mary's immaculate conception, and now fault the Church for taking the Jericho battle account literally.
***I find it very odd that you unhesitatingly (dare I say, naively) employ the Wikipedia as your authority here.***
No more odd than using the Catholic Encyclopedia - wouldn't you say?
*** What bothers me about your effort to use the Galileo affair as an effort to beat us Catholics over the head with is that your underlying animosity toward Catholicism leads to be naive and uncritical***
I haven't beaten anyone over the head. We are having a discussion about authority - i.e. Tradition vrs Scripture. I am using the Galileo case to make the point that Tradition is not inerrant - unlike the Scripture.
Aquinas, and the RCC in following him was wrong on this issue - agreed?
***it pitted evil Catholicism against virtuous, bold new science.***
Nope. Not my contention.
***Your visceral animosity toward us Catholics leads you to make common cause with the worst of the anti-Christian adherents of scientism,***
Wrong again. I appreciate whatever truth I see in Catholicism. One of the most inspiring and spiritually deep people I have ever read about (outside the Bible) is Br. Lawrence the Carmelite http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lawrence/practice.i.html
***why do you have so much visceral animosity toward Catholicism? Is it really necessary to your self-worth?***
I think there are many catholics here who, even though they know I disagree with them, nevertheless understand that I desire to be their friend.
You are wrong in thinking that the Tradition was in any way affected by scientific findings. Galileo did not discover Mary or the Roman Missal in his telescope. The Church, as a sponsor of science was making sure science did not become scientism, and was not used to scandalize the faithful. It did not argue from Tradition -- it argued from science against what they saw as scientific error and ended up scientifically wrong. Others argued from scripture -- not from Tradition either, and were also wrong, and the Church admits that. The Protestants at the same time made the same scriptural arguments against Copernican cosmology, and the Protestants don't burden themselves by tradition, at least consciously. Copernicus had the same scientific and scriptural difficulty as Galileo and was not prosecuted.
Aristotle may be a scientific tradition. It is not the Tradition in the theological sense. He was, after all, a pagan.
1) What did scripture rule should be done in Galileo's case? 2) Have your forgotten that scripture came from (errant) tradition?
3) Is there some way you have of applying scripture without any tradition whatsoever?
You replied: No more odd than using the Catholic Encyclopedia - wouldn't you say?
Much more odd. The Catholic Encyclopedia articles at least had normal editorial evaluation and assessment. It's Catholic perspective is clear. The Wikipedia consists of stuff anybody and his uncle wish to put into it and anybody and his parakeet can edit. You have no idea how credible a particular article is.
I wrote: What bothers me about your effort to use the Galileo affair as an effort to beat us Catholics over the head with is that your underlying animosity toward Catholicism leads to be naive and uncritical You replied: I haven't beaten anyone over the head. We are having a discussion about authority - i.e. Tradition vrs Scripture. I am using the Galileo case to make the point that Tradition is not inerrant - unlike the Scripture.
Aquinas, and the RCC in following him was wrong on this issue - agreed?
Who is "him"? Galileo? Aquinas came 350 years before Galileon so he couldn't have followed Galileo. Aquinas and the Church following Aristotle? Shows how little you know about Aquinas--he used Aristotle critically; where Aristotle contradicted revelation (in Scripture and Tradition), Aquinas was not slow to jettison Aristotle.
I wrote: It pitted evil Catholicism against virtuous, bold new science.
Your replied: Nope. Not my contention.
"It" in my post referred to the textbook Galileo myth which your Wikipedia entry reflects. If you were not endorsing the the Wikipedia interpretation, then you needed to make that clear and one could then ask why you posted it.
I wrote: Your visceral animosity toward us Catholics leads you to make common cause with the worst of the anti-Christian adherents of scientism.
You replied; Wrong again. I appreciate whatever truth I see in Catholicism. One of the most inspiring and spiritually deep people I have ever read about (outside the Bible) is Br. Lawrence the Carmelite http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lawrence/practice.i.html
I'm glad you like Br. Lawrence. I don't recall that he sets forth any of the specific Catholic positions that have been debated here. And yes, you have manifested a visceral animosity toward a variety of specifically Catholic beliefs. That you can't admit it only underscores how much of a bubble you live in.
You wrote: I think there are many catholics here who, even though they know I disagree with them, nevertheless understand that I desire to be their friend.
A friend truly listens to what the other person says and does not impose his meaning onto what the other person says. How many times have you told us Catholics that we mean something other than what we say we mean? The most annoying person is the one who cannot let the other person have his own voice but has to impose his voice over the other person's voice.
But here is the amazing thing, eventhough there have been some bad Popes - no educated Catholic would disagree with you - not one of these men ever changed the deposit of faith, not one. And in the case of Vigilius who was elected Pope by the conniving of Empress Theodora thinking he would support her Monophysitism, when push came to shove, he didn't support the heresy but upheld his predesessor. For this he suffered 8 years of imprisonment at the hands of the Emperor.
***1) What did scripture rule should be done in Galileo's case?***
"And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?"
Christians weren't called to right every wrong or chase every goose in the world.
***2) Have your forgotten that scripture came from (errant) tradition?***
Scripture is the product of the Holy Spirit.
*** 3) Is there some way you have of applying scripture without any tradition whatsoever?***
We don't believe in "no tradition". We just dont place it on par with or above Scripture.
I'd be very surprized if it did on a dogmatic level. I am not sure, though. Perhaps someone can enlighten both of us.
Your finding from Syrach butressed my case for the special use of "kecharetomene". There was no pain.
The nature of the episode was not an excommunication but a trial postmortem to answer the allegation that that pope (pope Formosus) was not actually pope, because invalid for canonical reasons. The politics is rather convoluted, but had nothing to do with Formosus being a heretic. The true horror of the event was that the then reigning pope Stephen VII allowed the corps to be dug up for the synod and all the papal regalia (including his hair shirt) placed on him, evidently so they could ceremoniously strip it away from him. Eventually Stephen's successors annulled the verdict of the "Synod of the Corpse" and reinstated the clergy who's ordination, under Formosus, was in question. Amnesty was given to those who pleaded that they had participated in the odious affair because of duress. But, disgusting though this all was, no doctrinal pronouncements of any kind were involved. You can read the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on pope Formosus here, for more info on the political nature of the event.
*** Who is "him"? Galileo? Aquinas came 350 years before Galileon so he couldn't have followed Galileo.***
The "him" is Aquinas - the man who cosmology the RCC embraced. As in "Aquinas, and the RCC in following [Aquinas], was wrong on this issue - agreed?"
***Aquinas and the Church following Aristotle?***
Did or did not the RCC accept and build on Aquinas's geocentric cosmology?
*** "It" in my post referred to the textbook Galileo myth***
Have you in fact shown what was posted to be a "myth"?
***And yes, you have manifested a visceral animosity toward a variety of specifically Catholic beliefs.***
Now it's "Catholic beliefs" rather that "Catholics". Well I'm glad you corrected yourself.
***That you can't admit it only underscores how much of a bubble you live in***
It is clear from many of your posts that you have adopted an odd form of insult-apologetics. Do you find it effective?
1) What did scripture rule should be done in Galileo's case?***
"And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?"
Huh? So what is the answer?
Christians weren't called to right every wrong or chase every goose in the world.
The birth of the scientific method; the role of science and reason and spirit? The enlightenment, the age of reason, and the church? A goose? Huh? again.
Have your forgotten that scripture came from (errant) tradition?***
Scripture is the product of the Holy Spirit.
Yes, and...
Forgive me for my following sarcasm (no, don't forgive me, consider my way of communicating a point.)
Did the scripture you read today appear miraculously in your lap? Do you have a copy writ on stone by the finger of God? On the frontspiece does it say "Selected, translated and © Copyright Holy Spirit?
I respect you, Petronius, but you are dodging, here.
3) Is there some way you have of applying scripture without any tradition whatsoever?***
We don't believe in "no tradition". We just dont place it on par with or above Scripture.
So your 'tradition' doesn't interpret and apply scripture different than another tradition? Your church's tradition doesn't override the interpretation of scripture of those of others?
Another dodge. Same questions.
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