Tired or praying?
Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
I have been following your arguments MLG, if I can call them that. They are straw men. The Apostolic and Church Fathers are not considered inspired; only the Apostles. But the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit and the Church as a whole (consensus patrum) did not accept everything the fathers wrote. That which the Church agreed upon as a whole is considered inspired and those are the decisions reached through payer in Ecumenical Councils.
The authors of the KJV mentioned in their original edition that they were not inspired in compiling this version of the Bible (based on many erroneous sources and froth with errors of which the very authors admit a couple of hundred). Yet most English-speaking Protestants use it as "inspired" word of God.
Quite large.
I expect that Jesus is a pretty effective presenter....and without even one PowerPoint Slide or laser pointer. :>)
We Reformers don't base our theology mostly on Paul, we base it on the totality of scripture. Paul just happened to write a lot of it. :) The problem I see with your theology is that when there appears to be a conflict, the favored verse (Gospels) is declared correct [in the way it is interpreted], and the disfavored verse (Paul, or almost anything in the OT) is declared wrong. OTOH, the Spirit shows us a way that both verses are completely true. We don't have favored and disfavored verses in terms of truth. While Gospel verses may be more important to our salvation, they are no more true than the statistics in Numbers.
Did not the Protestants introduce a different (Hebrew) OT from the one the Apostles and the Church chose (Septuagint)?
To my knowledge, the Protestants didn't "introduce" anything. Apparently, the Apostles quoted from both the Septuagint and the Masoretic text. The question is over which version, that we have, is more reliable. Obviously, the original was in Hebrew. It's a fair debate. But you can't tell me that the Apostles "CHOSE" the Septuagint in terms of throwing the Masoretic text aside in its favor. That would make no sense. At that time, presumably there were still reasonable copies of the Hebrew text around. Why would the Apostles toss the originals in favor of a Greek translation as a matter of authority? They wouldn't.
Did not the Protestants introduce private interpretation of the Scriptures?
No, of course not. Reformers do not use private interpretation any more than you do today. Think of it, do Reformers or the Orthodox have more settled and agreed upon scriptural principles that "all" agree upon? I would say the Reformers do.
And regardless of what you think of Protestants and private interpretation, you cannot possibly assert that we introduced it. Many of your most beloved Fathers were cast aside on issues on which they were accused of private interpretation.
Well, perhaps I should have used the KJV:
1 Kings 18:42 : So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees, ... KJV
Is this what one does when one is simply tired? I can see an argument here for prostration and I can see one for prayer (or both), but not for relaxation or relief from fatigue. :) Plus, when is the prayer of a righteous man ever "done"?
THAT is very interesting because I recently had a conversation with Kosta and Kolo about this, but in the context of where the OT righteous went immediately after they died. My contention was that they went straight to Heaven, and offered the evidence of the Transfiguration. IOW, I agree with you that they WERE real and alive. In order to support the Orthodox position that no one went to Heaven before the crucifixion (anyone correct me if I'm wrong), I remember the response being that Moses and Elijah possibly were indeed manifestations, and not real or alive. So, my question is: does Catholicism support that the OT righteous went directly to Heaven upon death, and that Jesus' sacrifice retroactively applied to them at the time of their deaths?
Well, from what I've heard, there would be no squaring it with me! :) So you're right. I've never heard him preach, but I have seen a couple of critiques of his theology and I don't recognize it. Maybe they were unfair, I don't know. But, I don't know a lot of people on my side who stick up for him.
OK, good. I always thought we were splitting hairs on "what prayer is". :) Would you then agree that if a Christian bows his head and closes his eyes and begins with something like "Dear Heavenly Father" and ends with something like "In Jesus' name I pray, amen", that all the stuff in the middle can normally be composed of any mix of adoration, confession, AND supplication? If you say "yes", then I think this issue is solved. :)
The Jews sing and this is where that comes from, and your verse reminds us of that. It's the pastors parading back and forth, acting out, gesturing, boasting, etc., that draws attention to them (vanity). Our Lord did none of that.
Yes, I agree, and I stand against them also. Certain televangelistic money machines have given what I believe in a bad name and I very much regret it. However, remember that Jesus Himself approved, at least implicitly, of the fact that there are different preaching styles:
Matt 11:18-19 : 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by her actions."
John the Baptist and Jesus clearly had two different preaching styles, yet both were correct for their intended purposes. So, I don't think that a fire and brimstone sermon can be said to be bad by itself (and I know you didn't say that), since that is how John preached. I'm just saying there is more than one good way to preach.
Did Christ joke when He preached?
A good and very tough question. I think He did, but it is hard to prove. God invented humor and knew that it was an effective means of communicating a message. It still works today. So, I can't think of why He wouldn't have also used it. Now, the humor of their time may well have been very different from what we think is funny today. However, I can imagine this line being delivered in a humorous way, in order to make a point:
Luke 6:41-42 : 41 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
I mean, this COULD have been said with a laugh, yes? :) I really think so. Just imagine the possibility. It certainly would not have diminished the point. And, since Jesus was fully human, He could not have been a humorless being.
FK: "Your services SHOULD be focused on God and God only."
I can tell you have never attended one.
While you are right about that, let me say that I wasn't criticizing you, I was fully agreeing with you in support by echoing your own words back. :)
God knows our needs and desires but He is far more interested in carrying out what is best for us. Little kids have needs and desires but we certainly wouldn't think of giving in to those desires.
:::Origen says nothing of the kind, not even close. Origne says that the angels and the “saints at rest” pray along with us, being the saints on earth.:::
Uh huh.
“Raphael himself, when explaining his angelic commission at God’s command to help them, says:
“Even now when you prayed, and Sarah your daughter-in-law, I brought the memorial of your prayer before the Holy One,” and shortly after, “I am Raphael, one of the Seven angels who present the prayers of saints and enter in before the glory of the Holy One.”
So Raphael catches prayers directly to God in some sort of heavenly bucket and then presents them to God? I thought that Jesus was the only intermediary in Reformed doctrine. This gets better and better.
No Calvinist has ever replied directly to that question, so it comes as no surprise that you have not either.
Let me ask it again.
The good St. F. is either of the elect or not. If he is not of the elect, what good would it do for him to repent of any evil? Why should he?
Try to answer the question, if you would.
:::”Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”:::
Do you not understand your own religion? Reformed faith comes from the Holy Spirit invading one’s soul without that person having any say in the matter. Reformed elect are elected regardless of any action or inaction of any person or thing in our universe.
Just another disagreement that Calvin had with Scripture, obviously.
That is one of the problems with dealing with even labelled Protestants. Since each one self-determines his own theology, it is difficult to carry on a conversation about theology, since the labels differ, meanings differ, and definitions differ.
I am not saying that your definitions differ over time; you appear to me to be quite constant. I am saying that it is difficult coming from a mindset of constant definitions - A means A - to debate with a mixture of people with a mixture of definitions. And many of them have relative definitions which do fluctuate according to time, the weather, or simply their theological whim.
To the heresies?
There is hope, I’ll grant you that. The movements of some of the mainstream Protestant denominations are evidence that it is happening to a certain extent.
We agree with many of its points and disagree with those points which do not agree with the Church.
The Eastern Fathers, absolutely all of them, and Westerners before Augustine, and even after him, saw that there is no reprobation, not even negative, except in consideration of demerits. Augustine did not see that, and the unfortunate massa damnata theory, which said the whole human race by original sin became a massa damnata et damnabilis: God could throw the whole damned race into hell for original sin alone, without waiting for any personal sin.
In this theory, God wanted to display mercy and justice. To display mercy, He chose a small percent to rescue; the rest He deserted and so they would go to hell.
He thought God picked those to rescue blindly, without any consideration of how they lived. He picked them not that He had any love for them, but merely to make a point. Augustine did not see it, but that was a denial of God’s love. For to love is to will good to another for the other’s sake. If I will good to another not for that other’s sake, but for some outside purpose of mine, I am not loving that person, but using him.
So in that theory, God does not really love anyone, He merely uses the few for His own purposes, not for their sake. Hence, as we shall son see, he explicitly denied several times that “God wills all to be saved: (1 Tim 2:4) . He even said, as we shall soon see below, that it means nothing to God that most persons are damned, without a chance.
Of course Augustine did not see this fact, or he would surely have stayed away from his theory. Actually, as we shall see later on, in about six places he implies the opposite of that theory, when his sense of God’s goodness took over his thinking.
Further, he reached this theory from a collection of reasons, chiefly, the fact that he misunderstood the passage in Romans 8:29 through chapter 11. He thought it all referred to predestination to heaven or hell. (Hence, within that framework, he thought that the words of Romans 9:13,”I have loved Jacob and hated Esau” meant that God really hated Esau. And without even looking at Esau’s life wanted to damn him) . Actually, St. Paul does not speak of any such thing, but only of predestination to full membership in the Church. By allegory—without any support in the text or context, he thought that in the image of the potter in Romans 9:19-24 the gob of clay on the potter’s table meant the whole human race, made into a massa damnata et damnabilis by original sin.
St. Prosper of Aquitaine is often called the great defender of Augustine. But he clearly contradicted Augustine on the massa damnata , three times. For example, in his Responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Gallorum 3: “. . . for this reason they were not predestined because they were foreseen as going to be such as a result of voluntary transgression . . . For they were not deserted by God so that they deserted God; but they deserted and were deserted. . . .”
There is the complete analysis of this paper at http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/AUGUSTIN.htm
In summary, St. Augustine got a lot of things right, but he got some things wrong.
There are three logical steps in God’s decisions:
(1) He wills all men to be saved. Augustine did deny this, but Scripture teaches it, so we must and do hold it. Further since to will salvation is to will good to another, and since love consists in willing good to another for the other’s sake, therefore to deny this first step wold be to deny God’s love. Which would be blasphemy. This will on God’s part is extremely strong, measured by how far He went to make our eternal happiness possible: the terrible death of His Son, and His binding Himself in the covenant by the infinite price of redemption to offer forgiveness and grace infinitely, that is, without limit, except that limit set by man’s rejection of it.
(2) He looks—not ahead, for there is no time with Him—to see who resists His grace both gravely and persistently, so persistently that he throws away the only thing that could save him. Then sadly God decrees to let him go, negative reprobation. This is the unanimous view of all Eastern Fathers, and Westerners except St. Augustine.
(3) All who were not discarded in step two are positively predestined. But not because of merits. This is St. Augustine’s large contribution. Merits have not yet been considered at all. Rather, God predestines them to heaven because that is what He wanted to do in step 1, and thy are not blocking it.
:::And regardless of what you think of Protestants and private interpretation, you cannot possibly assert that we introduced it. Many of your most beloved Fathers were cast aside on issues on which they were accused of private interpretation.:::
Exactly. Cast aside. End of the line.
Today, we have churches that follow Calvin and Luther and Knox and Schuller and Haggard and Roberts and...
Tired or praying?
The Catholic sources that I’ve read indicate that Moses and Elijah were alive. Possibly they were manifestations, but my sources lean towards alive.
I’m not sure about the OT righteous. Perhaps some more learned Catholic might be able to step in here.
Amen! LOL! Thanks, BD.
“Tired or praying?”
Often the former, sadly too seldom the latter!
There is evidence that this confusion is symptomatic of the synergistic view of theology (e.g. God want man to co-operate, come to Him in faith, etc.). Any time synergism has been introduced, people deviate from the word of God to varying degrees, abandoning the word of God for feelings and experiences. Protestants introduced synergism 150 years after Calvin and, while there were various disagreements, it was nothing like to confusion of today-even within the same denomination.
Please don't take what I'm going to say that I'm a bitter and disappointed man, but as an objective analyst looking at history. (I've been label a pessimistic Calvinist.) To me Christianity has become nothing more than a socialized gospel. For non-believers God loves everyone, begging them to come to Him. For Christians He wants to rain His blessings upon us. We have totally lost the granduer of a God who calls, elects, protects and guide His people through His divine Holy Spirit. I think we are making a big mistake but I can only conclude this is happening according to God's will for some divine purpose.
You will find most Reformers, apart from the minor theological disagreements, do tend to be very consistent on most things clearly outline in the confessions. If we are inconsistent it is 1) we forgot what the confession tells us, or 2) the confession is silent and we are deviating. That is not necessarily a bad thing as long as we know we are in unclear waters.
Prior to becoming a Calvinist I did not studied the confessions which I believe would have given me a tainted, one-sided view. Instead I went back to the original church fathers and traced the history of church development. I haven’t read all the fathers but I’ve read enough. The Confessions only summarized the true monergistic Christian faith of the early fathers.
I believe the reason the Orthodox tend to be so solid in their beliefs is because they hold a strong synergistic view. The reason Reformers are consistent is because we hold a strong monergistic view. I happen to think that the Orthodox with their minimization of the inspired scripture is the wrong view. Everyone else, including Catholics, are all over the page because they hold to synergistism but cling to parts of monergistism to varying degrees. That is where confusion of definitions come into being.
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