Posted on 05/11/2005 10:04:08 AM PDT by NYer
I use to live in Vienna and teach English to Russians emigrating to America, Canada and Australia. I met some very dear people in those classes.
My route was through Greece. This is how I know Greek.
You have not read carefully what I wrote. I distinguished between the science of the Middle Ages, which was Ptolemaic and the theology which was not (and could not be because Ptolemy had nothing to say on theology. Aquinas shared a Ptolemaic science as did everyone else in his day. That does not discredit Aquinas's theology, which is what you were trying to do--to use the fact that before Copernicus, everyone, in their thinking about the science of the universe, was Ptolemaic, to make a point about the Church being in erro theologically. As a new scientific paradigm was developed (Copernicus/Kepler/Galileo), it was rightly controversial. The boundaries between science and theology were not always observed--not always by Galileo, not always by his opponents, but the Church never hung its hat on either the Ptolemaic or the Copernican scientific theory, even though some Church officials were mixed up about some aspects of this during the trial of Galileo. It was a time of confusion all around but it had to do with a disciplinary proceeding, not a dogmatic exercise of the teaching office. And the boundaries between science and theology are still confused by those who perpetuate the conventional Galileo myth.
My sources here are the leading historians of science: Shea, Hodgson etc.
I have not read Geisler on this point nor do I plan to. He has his approach to theology and philosophy but it is not one that I find very compelling. I certainly have not found him in the past very well informed on medieval history or theology.
How many times must I repeat myself: I do not engage in personal invective nor do I consider everyone who disagrees with Catholicism to be anti-Catholic. I have leveled specific criticisms of your approach, namely, that you do not really listen to your opponent or grant your opponent the right to represent his own Catholic teaching. You present quotations from Catholic sources, interpret them according to your idiosyncracies and, when we remonstrate that you have interpreted them falsely, you move on to another topic or simply reassert the validity of your idiosyncratic interpretation. This is not personal invective but an attack on your mode of argumentatation. Behind it lies your assumption that the meaning of any text (including Scripture) is univocal. You read a quotation by a Catholic writer of the past regarding Mary and you just know that it means X. We tell you that it does not and you just know that it does. One cannot have a conversation when one side gets to define the meaning of both his own side's texts and the other side's texts.
This is not personal invective. It is a statement about the way your pre-judgments affect the way you read our texts.
If you take this as my appeal to "victimhood," then so be it. Our conversation is over and if you need to tell yourself that it's because I attacked you personally, so be it.
So Mary was picked to be the wife of the Holy Spirit because her will matched His perfectly?
No - the unification of Mary's free will with God's is necessarily a condition of her immaculate conception, yet individually a choice of her own free will to remain united. She was set aside by God as far back as the Garden of Eden, upon the fall of Adam and Eve. I think it would be a little too trite to say that God chose her arbitarily - He certainly had to fulfill the prophets by uniting someone from the line of David with the virgin. But, like all of us who are saved through faith, she did not earn it per se. She was saved by Christ through the gift of the sacrifice that was yet to come and the gift of faith which He bestowed upon her.
To sum it up, Mary was not technically picked because her will matched God's perfectly - although it did, and by virtue of Her salvation from sin and her choosing not to betray that. She was chosen before she was conceived by Anna and Joachim. She was further saved upon conception from the stain of original sin. Mary essentially started out with the same state of being as Eve prior to the Fall. Both were perfectly united with God's will by definition (they were sinless) and by desire (they chose not to sin). Mary, however in contrast to Eve, was willed by the Father to trample the serpent (call it payback), and in order to do so, she could not be burdened with the sin of Eve. Like Eve, she was tempted throughout her life, but unlike Eve, she did not sin. When Gabriel came to Mary at the annunciation, he was very clear in announcing that she is "full of grace". This was necessarily the condition by which the Holy Spirit could become her spouse. This is the same condition by which you and I will enter heaven - full of grace - and be wedded to the Holy Spirit for eternity. And what's even more extraordinary is that God the Father STILL respected her free will to say "yes" or "no" to the angel. Until she said, "be it done unto me according to thy word", there was no 100% guarantee that the Messiah would come. It's astonishing to think about how much God respects our right to choose or reject Him.
So it could not have been just "anyone". It had to be Mary because it was God's will. But it was also Mary's will to do the will of God, which is, in a nutshell, everything every Christian should ultimately strive for in life. Mary was the perfect Christian. Not a deity, but a human being saved from original sin by her Son, and prepared to become the "ark" that would carry the presence of God until His birth.
Wow, I think I'm speechless. Where did you learn all this?
Being anthematized is not so much an action of the Church as it is an action of the individual imposing ipso facto excommunication by virtue of the transgression itself.
Answer:
Prayer, sacraments, study of scripture, study of Hebrew tradition, study of Catholic tradition (patristic and doctoral writings), etc.
If you're being sarcastic, it's okay. I'm not here to convert anyone, but share the Gospel as the Catholic Church teaches. We're all Christians and we need to strive for unity. All I can offer is what has been taught for 2000 years. Whether or not you accept it as truth is between you and God.
You will surely ask where the bible says it is all I need to know. It says it right there where it says that the word Trinity is a good way to describe the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Verse after verse and chapter after chapter the bible speaks of itself and it's incalculable value to knowing God.
Do you actually believe that the bible never says or implies that it is infallible?
Ping to self to see if this goes any further than "I believe this because of the bible only" and "I believe that because of the bible and traditions". That seems to be where we are right now. I'm afraid I don't have any more to add.
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