Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Yesterday's Reuters headline: "The Vatican on Tuesday said Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ." The actual proclamation, posted on the official Vatican Web site, says that Protestant Churches are really "ecclesial communities" rather than Churches, because they lack apostolic succession, and therefore they "have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery." Furthermore, not even the Eastern Orthodox Churches are real Churches, even though they were explicitly referred to as such in the Vatican document Unitatis Redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism). The new document explains that they were only called Churches because "the Council wanted to adopt the traditional use of the term." This new clarification, issued officially by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but in fact strongly supported by Pope Benedict XVI, manages to insult both Protestants and the Orthodox, and it may set ecumenism back a hundred years.
The new document, officially entitled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church," claims that the positions it takes do not reverse the intent of various Vatican II documents, especially Unitatis Redintegratio, but merely clarify them. In support of this contention, it cites other documents, all issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), Communionis notio (1992), and Dominus Iesus (2000). The last two of these documents were issued while the current pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was prefect of the Congregation. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was born in 1542 with the name Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, and for centuries it has operated as an extremely conservative force with the Roman Catholic Church, opposing innovation and modernizing tendencies, suppressing dissent, and sometimes, in its first few centuries, persecuting those who believed differently. More recently, the congregation has engaged in the suppression of some of Catholicism's most innovative and committed thinkers, such as Yves Congar, Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Matthew Fox, and Jon Sobrino and other liberation theologians. In light of the history of the Congregation of the Faith, such conservative statements as those released this week are hardly surprising, though they are quite unwelcome.
It is natural for members of various Christian Churches to believe that the institutions to which they belong are the best representatives of Christ's body on earth--otherwise, why wouldn't they join a different Church? It is disingenuous, however, for the leader of a Church that has committed itself "irrevocably" (to use Pope John Paul II's word in Ut Unum Sint [That They May Be One] 3, emphasis original) to ecumenism to claim to be interested in unity while at the same time declaring that all other Christians belong to Churches that are in some way deficient. How different was the attitude of Benedict's predecessors, who wrote, "In subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the [Roman] Catholic Church--for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame" (Unitatis Redintegratio 3). In Benedict's view, at various times in history groups of Christians wandered from the original, pure Roman Catholic Church, and any notion of Christian unity today is predicated on the idea of those groups abandoning their errors and returning to the Roman Catholic fold. The pope's problem seems to be that he is a theologian rather than a historian. Otherwise he could not possibly make such outrageous statements and think that they were compatible with the spirit of ecumenism that his immediate predecessors promoted.
One of the pope's most strident arguments against the validity of other Churches is that they can't trace their bishops' lineages back to the original apostles, as the bishops in the Roman Catholic Church can. There are three problems with this idea.
First, many Protestants deny the importance of apostolic succession as a guarantor of legitimacy. They would argue that faithfulness to the Bible and/or the teachings of Christ is a better measure of authentic Christian faith than the ability to trace one's spiritual ancestry through an ecclesiastical bureaucracy. A peripheral knowledge of the lives of some of the medieval and early modern popes (e.g., Stephen VI, Sergius III, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI) is enough to call the insistence on apostolic succession into serious question. Moreover, the Avignon Papacy and the divided lines of papal claimants in subsequent decades calls into serious question the legitimacy of the whole approach. Perhaps the strongest argument against the necessity of apostolic succession comes from the Apostle Paul, who was an acknowledged apostle despite not having been ordained by one of Jesus' original twelve disciples. In fact, Paul makes much of the fact that his authority came directly from Jesus Christ rather than from one of the apostles (Gal 1:11-12). Apostolic succession was a useful tool for combating incipient heresy and establishing the antiquity of the churches in particular locales, but merely stating that apostolic succession is a necessary prerequisite for being a true church does not make it so.
The second problem with the new document's insistence upon apostolic succession is the fact that at least three other Christian communions have apostolic succession claims that are as valid as that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox Churches, which split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054, can trace their lineages back to the same apostles that the Roman Catholic Church can, a fact acknowledged by Unitatis Redintegratio 14. The Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as the Coptic and Ethiopic Orthodox Churches, split from the Roman Catholic Church several centuries earlier, but they too can trace their episcopal lineages back to the same apostles claimed by the Roman Catholic Church as its founders. Finally, the Anglican Church, which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the reign of King Henry VIII, can likewise trace the lineage of every bishop back through the first archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine. In addition to these three collections of Christian Churches, the Old Catholics and some Methodists also see value in the idea of apostolic succession, and they can trace their episcopal lineages just as far back as Catholic bishops can.
The third problem with the idea of apostolic succession is that the earliest bishops in certain places are simply unknown, and the lists produced in the third and fourth centuries that purported to identify every bishop back to the founding of the church in a particular area were often historically unreliable. Who was the founding bishop of Byzantium? Who brought the gospel to Alexandria? To Edessa? To Antioch? There are lists that give names (e.g., http://www.friesian.com/popes.htm), such as the Apostles Mark (Alexandria), Andrew (Byzantium), and Thaddeus (Armenia), but the association of the apostles with the founding of these churches is legendary, not historical. The most obvious breakdown of historicity in the realm of apostolic succession involves none other than the see occupied by the pope, the bishop of Rome. It is certain that Peter did make his way to Rome before the time of Nero, where he perished, apparently in the Neronian persecution following the Great Fire of Rome, but it is equally certain that the church in Rome predates Peter, as it also predates Paul's arrival there (Paul also apparently died during the Neronian persecution). The Roman Catholic Church may legitimately claim a close association with both Peter and Paul, but it may not legitimately claim that either was the founder of the church there. The fact of the matter is that the gospel reached Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, and other early centers of Christianity in the hands of unknown, faithful Christians, not apostles, and the legitimacy of the churches established there did not suffer in the least because of it.
All the talk in the new document about apostolic succession is merely a smokescreen, however, for the main point that the Congregation of the Faith and the pope wanted to drive home: recognition of the absolute primacy of the pope. After playing with the words "subsists in" (Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church] 8) and "church" (Unitatis Redintegratio 14) in an effort to make them mean something other than what they originally meant, the document gets down to the nitty-gritty. "Since communion with the Catholic Church, the visible head of which is the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Peter, is not some external complement to a particular Church but rather one of its internal constitutive principles, these venerable Christian communities lack something in their condition as particular churches." From an ecumenical standpoint, this position is a non-starter. Communion with Rome and acknowledging the authority of the pope as bishop of Rome is a far different matter from recognizing the pope as the "visible head" of the entire church, without peer. The pope is an intelligent man, and he knows that discussions with other Churches will make no progress on the basis of this prerequisite, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the pope, despite his protestations, has no interest in pursuing ecumenism. Trying to persuade other Christians to become Roman Catholics, which is evidently the pope's approach to other Churches, is not ecumenism, it's proselytism.
Fortunately, this document does not represent the viewpoint of all Catholics, either laypeople or scholars. Many ordinary Catholics would scoff at the idea that other denominations were not legitimate Churches, which just happen to have different ideas about certain topics and different ways of expressing a common Christianity. Similarly, many Catholic scholars are doing impressive work in areas such as theology, history, biblical study, and ethics, work that interacts with ideas produced by non-Catholic scholars. In the classroom and in publications, Catholics and non-Catholics learn from each other, challenge one another, and, perhaps most importantly, respect one another.
How does one define the Church? Christians have many different understandings of the term, and Catholics are divided among themselves, as are non-Catholics. The ecumenical movement is engaged in addressing this issue in thoughtful, meaningful, and respectful ways. Will the narrow-minded view expressed in "Responses" be the death-knell of the ecumenical movement? Hardly. Unity among Christians is too important an idea to be set aside. Will the document set back ecumenical efforts? Perhaps, but Christians committed to Christian unity--Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike--will get beyond it. The ecumenical movement is alive and well, and no intemperate pronouncement from the Congregation of the Faith, or the current pope, can restrain it for long. Even if ecumenism, at least as it involves the Roman Catholic Church's connection with other Churches, is temporarily set back a hundred years, that distance can be closed either by changes of heart or changes of leadership.
If we take the Church's interpretations, then man must thwart God's will by definition. I see no way around it.
Also, Paul specifically tells us that we should NOT believe something "just because we are told".
I do not believe that most people are not saved - Christ uses the term “the many”. I believe that most people are saved to everlasting life.
The resultant math would mean that most people in Heaven never had faith in Christ. Yet, the scriptures clearly require faith. And from the Catechism:
183 Faith is necessary for salvation. The Lord himself affirms: "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mk 16:16).
Thank you for the scriptures. They certainly do have excellent instructions for us.
May all of you have a very wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving! :)
Fortunately science has begun to change again and I pray will soon return to the realization that monsters do exist. The great turning point happened about 40 years ago when scientists stopped claiming the universe always existed and realized there is a point at which the universe began.
Man is autonomous to a certain point, but the Church teaches (and this predates the Reformers FK) that man is dependent on God and can exist fully only in full communion with God, never as a creature separated from God;
Your church was late to the game in teaching this. Scripture has contained this truth from the beginning.
Wihout my Church, you would have no scripture.
Oh, really? I am still waiting for some solid proof that what we believe in is objectively verifiable.
Mary freely consented to it by Her FAITH and LOVE of God!
I wish you a Blessed Thanksgiving!
Unsuccessful? Europe is for all practical purposes secular (church attendance in German is 6% of Catholics and 5% for Protestants). Even in America, atheism is on the rise and, ...
Well, of course you are right about that. :) We were using "unsuccessful" in opposite ways. I meant as to their original intended purpose. Many of those philosophers were considered Christians, but fell into the humanistic trap.
Enter the Reformers, particularly John Calvin. Once you have reduced God to naked legalism, it was only a (predictable) step to naked rationalism.
You must be kidding. :) "Rational" is good. "Rationalism" is bad (humanism). The Reformers were NOT humanists. :) Humanists believed in the inner power and elevation of man. That might be a quality of some faiths, but NOT the Reformed.
FK: "But, they insisted that man was autonomous, and THAT is what destroyed their ambitions. ..."
To the contrary, FK. Man believes to this day that we can solve all our problems and unlock of the mysteries through reason, that there is a logical explanation to everything. ...
Perhaps we don't agree on what their ambitions were. I am saying that they were trying to construct a reality which included God, but had man as autonomous. Your post above, which is correct, PROVES that this is impossible. Their ambitions failed because man cannot reconcile with God if man is in control. Therefore, they gave up and went to a "leap of faith" philosophy because reason cannot be used to explain God if man is the boss. You are right that this is the state of the world today, but I consider it a failure of what those Renaissance philosophers originally wanted.
It is the believers who lost the motivation when they [realized?] that diseases are not demonic possessions as the Bible teaches, when thunder turned out to be electrical energy, even something we can harness.
Sure, but they went way too far, thanks in part to the humanist philosophy that has been progressing ever since. Many decided that there is no such thing as demonic possession because the field of mental health was developed. We of course know much better than that. I mean, right? :)
Reason uncovered many a mystery that was attributed to God or to the devil, and discovered that being in the dark we see things differently. Once science shone its light on things we realized the monsters were only in our head.
SOME of the monsters were only in our heads. :) Man tended to replace God with science and that was a huge mistake. God gave science to man, so there was no cause to shut God out because of it. Man came to believe that his intellect was enlightened and superior, so God no longer had a place based on reason. To include God at all, the only place left was to take a leap of faith. Man's self-declared autonomy inevitably led to God and reason not being able to co-exist together. I see that as a tragedy.
... in other words, it was the Church that taught that man is not autonomous. The Reformers did not discover that.
I think it's exactly the opposite. Reformers are criticized because we say that only God is autonomous. We have always said that. The Church, OTOH, recognizes man's autonomy to determine his own destiny, to dispense God's graces, to forgive sins, and to even speak in place of God. Within the Church itself, man has decided that he himself has the power to grant and take away salvation. (Not in an absolute sense, but nevertheless in a very real sense.) All of this happens according to the free will of man. The Church teaches dependence alright, but to a great extent, the dependence is on fellow man
First, we can use accepted methods of historiography to show what contemporaries believed, and also see whether the purported truth has withstood the test of time. If Moses never encountered God, then his teachings were from himself. We would then have to suppose that all of the other Biblical writers were writing on their own, and all of their writings put together somehow magically produced one pure truth. Over one thousand years of writing all came together as the Bible has, we would have to believe, and the Christian God had nothing to do with it. Is this "reasonable"? Could such diverse humans have come up with this by themselves? Many would say "yes", but I would say "No", it's not even close.
There is a basic leap of faith and from there on it all becomes very "real." If you and [I] are convinced that there are unicorns on Jupiter and someone comes up with a "revelation" about their size and color and the shape of the horn, we could be having real discussions about them ...
You were correct to put "real" in quotations because if the starting point is a leap of faith then nothing is actually real. It would then be correct to play "dial-a-faith" among them all. One would be no better than the next. I think Christianity is superior to that and stands alone among the other faiths. In essence, you noted before that I cannot quote chapter and verse from all the other holy books in the world, so I can't say this, but nevertheless, I cannot conceive of anything else BETTER explaining the human condition from a basis of fact than Christianity.
Look, the city of Troy existed and its ruins have been found. Does that make Homer's Iliad a true story? Historical finds in biblical lands prove nothing either.
No, and put to a factual test, the Iliad would not come close to passing as the Bible does. One is NOT just as good as the other.
There is simply no other way to believe the Bible but by a leap of (blind) faith. And that is true of every other religion in the world. Muslims call it, correctly, surrender, which is what Islam means.
Then would you say that your faith is simply a product of your environment? Were you just lucky to be born around other Christians?
We are like dogs who have no clue why the master leaves home every day (to go to work), or why he does things.
I see what you're saying, but God gave us everything we need to know. Some of that is arrived at using reason, which the animals don't have. I'm kind of surprised to see you say this since the Apostolic view is that man as a child of God is seen as a grown up who is perfectly capable of making his own informed decisions. It's my side that says we are more like toddlers who are dependent for everything. :)
That's where the age of reason brought us, FK. To realize that we know nothing and that God's revelation to us was all we really needed to know, because all the knowledge of the world and beyond does not bring us closer to the ultimate answer.
In large part I agree, and this is why I said they were failures. Their goal was to find the ultimate answer, but they could not while they held on to man's autonomy. They settled for "leap of faith", but that is really no answer at all. It is a substitute for a real answer.
Well, you've spoken against relativism, and so do I, therefore, we know that these different answers from other religions cannot be right. If in attitude we revert to "your religion is as good as mine" then our evangelism is pointless. Maybe the evangelism aspect is what makes blind faith acceptable to the Orthodox.
FK: "Biblically, "inspired" means "God-breathed". The words from God's breath either contain error or they do not."
The words are human, not divine. If the Bible were perfect then the Bible would be God. Some people take it that way.
Then to you "God-breathed" means "human". That leads to all sorts of unfortunate things. :) I disagree that if the Bible was perfect it would "be" God. Perfection includes the intended purpose for the creation. The Bible IS perfect for what it was intended for, His revelation to us as He designed it. Unless you want to say that God intended to reveal errors to us, the Bible contains none.
Then why not believe that God leads His Apostolic Church according to His plan?
He does, He leads all of His Church that way. For whatever reason, He has decided that for some of His flock they have a particular emphasis on men and the rituals of men. Perhaps for the way they were made, that was the only way they would become Christians. I have no idea. However, it could also be a punishment that He allows those beliefs to stay in place. I certainly can't say, but I do know it is by God's design, and that all those with true faith will go to Heaven.
And why not believe that He would make sure the Church is infallible, since it teaches the word of God? And since He specifically made it for that purpose?
God's Church IS infallible to the extent He moves through it. If He made only a particular hierarchy infallible, then it would have proved all other Christian faiths wrong. None has come close to even approaching that. God does lead His Holy Church corporately, but He does not give all truth to only one section of it. Claiming so would be like when the Apostles asked Jesus who would be the greatest in Heaven.
God's Church does teach the word of God, and on core principles of faith it is in good agreement. That leaves most of the rest of the faith for us to disagree upon. For whatever reason, this was God's design.
And the completeness of that revealed truth is in His Apostolic Church, given that no other Church was made by Christ personally.
God also created the faith (Church) of the Jews personally, and look what happened to that. God gave many clear revelations to the Jews, which they got for five minutes, and then they blew it. I'm not sure why you believe you have been immune to that for 2,000 years. It's not God's failure, it's His plan. The Reformation was also a part of God's plan to correct many errors.
FK: "If one thinks the originals were infallible, like I do, then it is no leap to also think that if God went to all that trouble, that He would also protect later versions that were accepted by God's Church."
He did. He created His Church, gave the keys to His Apostles and told them to carry on His work and safeguard the truth revealed in an unchanging and eternal Church that nothing will bring down. The Apostolic Church taught what it teaches to this day. And thats same Church put together the NT.
Well, this equates God's Church with your Church only. The Latins do the same. None of us outsiders can possibly know which of you to believe, since both of you have always and everywhere believed in your own different faiths, that used to be the same [???], so we find both of your claims to be specious. At least, that's PART of the reason. :) The main beef of course is that the Church's interpretations defy reason in terms of matching the words of the entire text. Blind faith would be the only way to solve this.
Perhaps as many as 72 of them? :) What I'd love to know is how the Bible would have read, according to Apostolics, if she HAD said "no". Would God have admitted man's power over Him, or would the whole event never have been reported? Have there been thousands of other examples where man said "no" to God, thus forcing God to change His original plan, etc.? Perhaps the way history has unfolded is God's 10 billionth best plan, as deviated by man. It must be by shear luck that we are even still here. :)
Paul took the scriptures he referred to as true, I surmise, because Jesus did also. I don't know what you would accept as objectively verifiable, since it is well established that the historiography of the Bible is legitimate. I also don't know if you think that Aristotle or Plato ever lived or wrote what many think they wrote, or if you think that George Washington ever lived, etc.
FK, any phenomenon we cannot explain by necessity involves rationalization. To rationalize is to "to invent plausible explanations for acts, opinions, etc., that are actually based on other causes..." so the humanists as well as non-humanists rationalize.
I am saying that they were trying to construct a reality which included God
That is true of all religions, including Christianity.
Their ambitions failed because man cannot reconcile with God if man is in control
We can't even explain the whole of Creation, let alone God. I think the humanists realized that they bit more than they can chew. In reality it makes no difference how much we know; it changes nothing. So what if we know there are 23 heaxtrillion stars in the visible universe? Really, how does that effect our life on earth?
Therefore, they gave up and went to a "leap of faith" philosophy because reason cannot be used to explain God if man is the boss.
I think not FK. They equate God with nature (typical New Age and Shinto beliefs), and none considers man above nature. Man is not capable of changing the Universe. Natural disasters remind us of that all the time.
You are right that this is the state of the world today, but I consider it a failure of what those Renaissance philosophers originally wanted
I agree. They started with an ambitious project to show that man can conquer everything and all, to deify man and humanize God. But, once they realized they failed, they rejected God and became atheists in the last act of defiance, arrogance and pride. It somehow becomes all God's "fault."
Sure, but they went way too far, thanks in part to the humanist philosophy that has been progressing ever since. Many decided that there is no such thing as demonic possession because the field of mental health was developed
Not just mental health, FK. Many "mental" diseases turned out to be of viral, bacterial, congenital and other explainable causes (etiologies); some can even be controlled or even cured. The association of diseases with demons in the Bible is the best example, in my opinion, that the words of the Bible are not God's but human. The revealed truth is God's, but it was packaged in the words and personalities and, most importantly, rationalizations of individual writers and their cocnept of the world, their cultral envornoment and society in general.
Man tended to replace God with science and that was a huge mistake. God gave science to man
I couldn't agree more, FK. Science can't compete with or replace God. Science can only reveal the ineffable nature of God, something that is truly beyond everything.
so there was no cause to shut God out because of it. Man came to believe that his intellect was enlightened and superior, so God no longer had a place based on reason
I disagree. God was no longer necessary for us to combat disease and to understand things like lightening, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc. and associate them with God sitting "above." Given that biblical-style miracles simply don't happen, along with de-demonization of diseases and other phenomena, God was simply dropped from being associated as the cause; man realized his own superstition that often make sup a significant part of any religion.
To include God at all, the only place left was to take a leap of faith
That is the prima facie first cause of all religions, FK, not just of humanists.
Man's self-declared autonomy inevitably led to God and reason not being able to co-exist together
God and reason can co-exist, given the necessary "leap of faith." As separate entities. Reason is powerless when it comes to God. That's why humanists failed.
I see that as a tragedy
Human tragedy started with Adam, FK.
Kosta:... in other words, it was the Church that taught that man is not autonomous. The Reformers did not discover that.
I think it's exactly the opposite. Reformers are criticized because we say that only God is autonomous
FK, straight from the Doctrine of the Orthodox Church
The Greek Fathers of the church always implied that the phrase found in the biblical story of the creation of man (Gen. 1:26), according to "the image and likeness of God," meant that man is not an autonomous being and that his ultimate nature is defined by his relation to God, his "prototype."
In paradise Adam and Eve were called to participate in God's life and to find in him the natural growth of their humanity "from glory to glory." To be "in God" is, therefore, the natural state of man.
This doctrine is particularly important in connection with the Fathers' view of human freedom. For theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa (4th century) and Maximus the Confessor (7th century) man is truly free only when he is in communion with God; otherwise he is only a slave to his body or to "the world," over which, originally and by God's command, he was destined to rule.
Sorry, FK, the Orthodox were way ahead of the Reformers in that regard. They didn't need to re-invent the wheel. :)
The Church, OTOH, recognizes man's autonomy to determine his own destiny
No, FK, that is not what we believe. From the Orthodox Catechism (please, please read the whole thing, not just the excerpt below):
Faith is the path on which an encounter takes place between us and God. It is God who takes the first step: He fully and unconditionally believes in us and gives us a sign, an awareness of His presence. We hear the mysterious call of God, and our first step towards an encounter with Him is a response to this call. God may call us openly or in secret, overtly or covertly. But it is difficult for us to believe in Him if we do not first heed this call
Apologies for including you in the above post. It was a copy-and-paste error on my part.
1. There is Scriptural evidence of the Ressurection of Jesus therefore I believe it.
2. There is Scriptural evidence that Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish therefore I believe it.
3. There is no Scriptural evidence of the Bodily Assumption of Mary. In fact Scripture is silent concerning Mary after the Crucifiction. Since the only "evidence" of her assumption is latter day Church Fathers, Tradition, and pious "reasoning" I have no idea whether it happened or not. It could happened. It may not have happened. IOW it makes no difference in my personal relationship with God. My prayers are directed to God and only to God.
Now, is it reasonable for me to ask where you are going with your "Yes or No" line of questioning?
Do you believe Jesus has never refused a request of Mary? Yes or No.
If you don’t mind, I don’t mind... :)
Did I just read you invoke tradition?
If Moses never encountered God, then his teachings were from himself
No, Moses didn't have any witnesses. They had to take his word for it or, better yet, we have to take the word of the writer of Torah.
We would then have to suppose that all of the other Biblical writers were writing on their own
Not necessarily, FK. They could have all been led by the Spirit (just as some say we all are), but expressed their spiritual knowledge to a varying degree of perfection.
and all of their writings put together somehow magically produced one pure truth
Yes, miraculously they certainly seem to, despite the differences in perceptions and language and cultures...Gods revelation to man is gradual.
Could such diverse humans have come up with this by themselves?
No, but the Bible is not nearly as seamless as some would like to portray it. Yet, there is a common thread in the entire collection of scriptures, even if the details are not necessarily complimentary.
I think Christianity is superior to that and stands alone among the other faiths
I agree, but what irresistible proof do you have to offer to others?
No, and put to a factual test, the Iliad would not come close to passing as the Bible does
What's wrong with the Illiad?
Then would you say that your faith is simply a product of your environment? Were you just lucky to be born around other Christians?
I don't know. You think you'd be a Christian if you were born and raised in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia?
I see what you're saying, but God gave us everything we need to know
You mean, to some?
I'm kind of surprised to see you say this since the Apostolic view is that man as a child of God is seen as a grown up who is perfectly capable of making his own informed decisions. It's my side that says we are more like toddlers who are dependent for everything
Certainly. St. Paul speaks of spiritual "babes" whose spiritual food is spiritual milk.
In large part I agree, and this is why I said they were failures. Their goal was to find the ultimate answer, but they could not while they held on to man's autonomy
No they discovered that the world is much bigger than we believed, and that God, who is beyond everything, is even greater Mystery than the universe.
They settled for "leap of faith", but that is really no answer at all
No, we all did.
It is a substitute for a real answer
Yes. Just because we believe in Him doesn't mean we know how God truly is.
It sounds like it's just semantic then. I am learning the terms in a very specific way and wasn't sure if you were using them in kind or not. No big deal. In my study "rationalism" is man using reason but from the starting point of man. Therefore, God is left to the irrational. I oppose that and say that God CAN be understood using reason, i.e. the starting point for using reason is God and not man.
I think the humanists realized that they bit more than they can chew.
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. They failed.
In reality it makes no difference how much we know; it changes nothing. So what if we know there are 23 heaxtrillion stars in the visible universe? Really, how does that effect our life on earth?
It certainly makes a huge difference in our world view and how we perceive our place in the universe vis-a-vis God. One way this affects our lives is how useful we are going to be to God while on earth. I think those who see God rooted in reason will on average make much better witnesses. Their testimonies will be stronger because they cater to reason. I don't know how a "leap-of-faither" would even approach a lost person to witness.
FK: "Therefore, they gave up and went to a "leap of faith" philosophy because reason cannot be used to explain God if man is the boss."
I think not FK. They equate God with nature (typical New Age and Shinto beliefs), and none considers man above nature. Man is not capable of changing the Universe. Natural disasters remind us of that all the time.
Yes, "nature" is critical to this discussion, but I think you are just mentioning another portion of my argument. In the philosophical progression, the original thought was that "grace was the base". Then, nature replaced grace, as you alluded to. Man's autonomy was already well established, BUT now it had to compete with the autonomy of nature. Of course this resulted in disaster, as the humanists refused to give up their freedom. God/nature was simply discarded or ignored. All of this was simply the precursor failure of men like Rousseau in the eighteenth century to the later failure of the first "leap-of-faithers", like Kierkegaard, in the nineteenth century.
The association of diseases with demons in the Bible is the best example, in my opinion, that the words of the Bible are not God's but human. The revealed truth is God's, but it was packaged in the words and personalities and, most importantly, rationalizations of individual writers and their concept of the world, their cultural environment and society in general.
If so, then the "revealed truth" would be unknowable by anyone without an authority to interpret it. Therefore, the truth would not really be revealed at all. It would only be revealed to some and not others. Such is one of our biggest differences. The Bible is full with error, and only the hierarchy can make it meaningful for us, etc.
Do you discount that there were real demons possessing people in the Bible? If so, then who was Jesus speaking to in the Gospel accounts?
FK: "... so there was no cause to shut God out because of it. Man came to believe that his intellect was enlightened and superior, so God no longer had a place based on reason."
I disagree. God was no longer necessary for us to combat disease and to understand things like lightening, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc. and associate them with God sitting "above." Given that biblical-style miracles simply don't happen, along with de-demonization of diseases and other phenomena, God was simply dropped from being associated as the cause; man realized his own superstition that often makes up a significant part of any religion.
I'm not sure how you are really disagreeing with me. When man decided that he could explain diseases and earthquakes, etc., then God was no longer needed for these, as you said. Consequently, man no longer reasoned that God was the cause for these phenomena, and man was wrong of course. What the humanists missed was that God was indeed still involved with all of this, and man just had a better understanding of His methods. Humanists didn't understand that God and reason STILL went together.
FK: "To include God at all, the only place left was to take a leap of faith."
That is the prima facie first cause of all religions, FK, not just of humanists.
Ridiculous! :) Reformers DO NOT rely on a leap of faith to believe in God. I would like to ask if any of our Roman Catholic friends would say their own belief is at core a leap of faith?
God and reason can co-exist, given the necessary "leap of faith." As separate entities. Reason is powerless when it comes to God. That's why humanists failed.
WHAT??? :) You cannot be telling me that a leap of faith is made based on reason. Therefore, there is NO coexistence between God and reason if you believe in it. Leap of faith isn't an answer to anything, it is a cop-out when one finally gives up that God and reason can be reconciled. When you say they are separate entities you admit that they do not go together. The humanist failure resulted in the FURTHER FAILURE of leap of faith. Leap of faith gives NO ANSWERS that are based on anything real. Leap of faith is FAILURE in and of itself.
Sorry, FK, the Orthodox were way ahead of the Reformers in that [man is not autonomous]. They didn't need to re-invent the wheel. :)
When you said that Reformers "did not discover it" I thought you meant that they didn't believe it. But I see now what you meant. :) However, I'm not sure the Orthodox Church is practicing what it preached. As the philosophers of the last 500 years have proved, leap of faith is only even POSSIBLE if man is autonomous.
FK: "The Church, OTOH, recognizes man's autonomy to determine his own destiny."
No, FK, that is not what we believe. From the Orthodox Catechism ...:
I know that you don't believe that man does it on his own. That isn't what autonomy means here. Autonomy means man makes the critical choice, the final choice, the choice that makes the difference between Heaven and hell. By this use of "autonomy" man determines his own destiny. We Reformers do not believe that man has this autonomy because it is God's autonomous decision as to who goes to Heaven and hell.
But I admit it to be "true" only because I "know" in my conviction (i.e. I believe) it is true, not because I have objective proof that it is. If I had irresistable proof then I could easily sway all others to believe as I do.
If in attitude we revert to "your religion is as good as mine" then our evangelism is pointless
Yes, because then you wouldn't even believe your own religion to be true, which is as good as not having one.
Maybe the evangelism aspect is what makes blind faith acceptable to the Orthodox.
I couldn't tell you. I find in Orthodoxy everything other Christian religions have, and then some.
The words are human, not divine. If the Bible were perfect then the Bible would be God. Some people take it that way.
Then to you "God-breathed" means "human"
No. God-breathed means that the individual comes to "know" something ineffable, and then tries to describe it. Try something like falling in love...But the nature of that revelation doesn't mean it is from God. It could be an evil spirit appearing as an angel of light. Do not forget that Gnostics and even the LDS claim to be "inspired."
I disagree that if the Bible was perfect it would "be" God
That which is perfect is God, FK. It means literally complete, that which lacks nothing.
Perfection includes the intended purpose for the creation
Anything from God is by definition perfect.
The Bible IS perfect for what it was intended for
Then we must presume that God intended for us to fall. The Bible certainly doesn't reveal that. If anything, it suggests that God "regretted" ("repented" in KJV) having made man.
God's Church IS infallible to the extent He moves through it. If He made only a particular hierarchy infallible, then it would have proved all other Christian faiths wrong
He didn't make them infallible, FK. He gave them the "keys to the kingdom of heaven." And as the Lord told his disciples:
If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained [John 20:23]
Just in case you wondered where the priests get their authority. They get it directly from the Apostles. It doesn't make them infallible. It simply makes them a tool of the Holy Spirit. You don't have to accept it or "recognize" it. It doesn't change the fact that the earliest Church accepted it as God's will.
Have some abused this? You bet! Did not Adam abuse God-given freedom?
God's Church does teach the word of God, and on core principles of faith it is in good agreement. That leaves most of the rest of the faith for us to disagree upon. For whatever reason, this was God's design
Or our failing. You do realize that we can fail God?
God also created the faith (Church) of the Jews personally, and look what happened to that
Look what happened with Adam.
God gave many clear revelations to the Jews, which they got for five minutes, and then they blew it
Yup.
I'm not sure why you believe you have been immune to that for 2,000 years
We go back to the beginnings and make corrections rather than inventions.
The Reformation was also a part of God's plan to correct many errors
The Reformation started out that way and then proceeded to reject Church authority, proclaiming that the Church was in apostasy from the getgo, for 1500 years. The Reformation certainly never made a universally convincing case for that.
Well, this equates God's Church with your Church only. The Latins do the same
No, we equate that to the Church Christ established and the authority bestowed to her. You are confusing ecclesial and theological differences with Apostolic authority. Both particular Churches are inheritors of the same Commission.
None of us outsiders can possibly know which of you to believe, since both of you have always and everywhere believed in your own different faiths, that used to be the same
LOL, we were theologically one Church until the the East realized that the West changed. For one thousand years, the two wings of the Church officially proclaimed the same faith. The Church did not have (a) Immaculate Conception dogma, (b) Purgatory dogma, (c) Infallibility of the Pope dogma, (d) created grace doctrine, (e) original sin doctrine, (f) the Filioque clause, etc.
You also have to understand that a lot of these differences are a matter of degree and not of kind, and that some of them are consistent with the particular mindset which have not been synchronized. The differences between the East and the West are intraecclesial and not extraecclesial.
Did I just read you [to] invoke tradition?
Not to my knowledge, how do you mean? Withstanding the test of time can certainly involve "tradition", but would you call parents loving their children "tradition"? I would call it more of a fundamental truth. Plus, if you call following the scriptures "tradition", then I would certainly follow that. IOW, are the scriptures just as true and pertinent to our lives today as in the day they were written? I would say yes.
FK: "If Moses never encountered God, then his teachings were from himself."
No, Moses didn't have any witnesses. They had to take his word for it or, better yet, we have to take the word of the writer of Torah.
GOD IS THE WITNESS! :) We don't have to trust Moses for anything. Does it ever seem odd to you that the Fathers you put so much trust in accepted the Bible on its face to a MUCH higher degree than you appear to? :)
FK: "Could such diverse humans have come up with this by themselves?"
No, but the Bible is not nearly as seamless as some would like to portray it. Yet, there is a common thread in the entire collection of scriptures, even if the details are not necessarily complimentary.
Well, there is quite a difference between minor translation errors and asserting that WHOLESALE error runs rampant throughout the Bible. In the way you present your opinion of the Bible it seems that one can only hang on to a "thread" of truth amid all the error, albeit that the thread is sufficient enough to define core Christianity. That seems extremely limiting to me, and an extreme limitation on God's revelation to us.
FK: "I think Christianity is superior to that and stands alone among the other faiths."
I agree, but what irresistible proof do you have to offer to others?
The truth of their own reality. When I explain to newbies that there is a chasm between God and man called sin, I rarely get any argument. If they have already agreed to listen to me, it means that deep down they recognize that there is something missing in their lives. Christianity FITS our human experience whether it is today or 2,000 years ago. Christianity based on reason works perfectly with the lost because it makes actual sense to something they can relate to.
FK: "No, and put to a factual test, the Iliad would not come close to passing as the Bible does."
What's wrong with the Iliad?
Nothing, it remains a great work of literature. However, I think that everyone understood that Homer was taking poetic license with the portrayals of the gods and goddesses, etc. It was a STORY that used Greek gods, but it wasn't put forth as a true story (although it used true events; fiction authors do the same today). The Bible isn't even comparable to the Iliad.
FK: "Then would you say that your faith is simply a product of your environment? Were you just lucky to be born around other Christians?"
I don't know. You think you'd be a Christian if you were born and raised in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia?
YES, without question! :) I claim I was elect long before I was ever born, so my birthplace and upbringing are irrelevant to whether I am of the elect. Even if I was raised to be a terrorist, at some point God would have "gotten me" and converted me to the truth. He loved His elect long before any of them even knew who He was.
FK: "I see what you're saying, but God gave us everything we need to know."
You mean, to some?
Depends on how we look at it. Everything we need to know is there for all to read or hear, but only some are granted eyes and ears.
FK: "In large part I agree, and this is why I said they were failures. Their goal was to find the ultimate answer, but they could not while they held on to man's autonomy."
No they discovered that the world is much bigger than we believed, and that God, who is beyond everything, is [an] even greater Mystery than the universe.
I wholeheartedly disagree. You sound like man realized that he should show greater respect for God as he learned more, when the reverse is what happened. Man shoveled God away from reason and into Mystery (the irrational -- where anything goes). This was man spitting on God. Once God was placed into Mystery, then the relativism that you have spoken against was ripe to take shape. Obviously "Mystery" doesn't explain anything real that we can relate to. :) Before "Mystery", man had a set of presuppositions of fact from which to start. Man's autonomy took those away.
FK: "[Leap of faith] is a substitute for a real answer."
Yes. Just because we believe in Him doesn't mean we know how God truly is.
You are caving in just as the humanist philosophers we have been talking about did. :) Reason DOES NOT demand that we know everything there is to know about God. Approached properly, the reason we have available to us is fully satiated by God. We believers have everything we need to know available to us. We don't have to give up by calling out "Mystery" or taking a leap of faith. There are SOME things we want to know but will not know in this life. Those are easily separable from the things we need to know and CAN know using reason PLUS faith. Because God loves us He WANTS us to have a REAL answer! :)
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