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.
Exactly. And as I indicated to you in my freepmail, my problem with the the Westminster confession is not in what it asserts, but in what it denies. I don't think the denial is supported by scripture. But the assertion that it is God who chooses us and that he does it independent of anything we do and for reasons known only to him is something I affirm.
Which is why you should be careful when you categorically deny that God chooses his own elect. I don't believe you can point to a verse to back up that assertion. You might be able to point to some esoteric understanding of the nature of God, but I don't believe you can find the verse that says that men are the ultimate determiners of their own salvation and that God's hands are tied in such a way that he only chooses those who choose to choose him.
As a non-Calvinst or a "Calvinist in the tradtition of Arminius" I would have reveled in finding such a verse. It would solve the paradox. But such a verse is not to be found.
Oh Contraire. Why don't we ask the Hebrew Scholars:
“And the earth was (not became) waste and void.” The alliterative nouns tohu vabohu, the etymology of which is lost, signify waste and empty (barren), but not laying waste and desolating. Whenever they are used together in other places (Isa_34:11; Jer_4:23), they are taken from this passage; but tohu alone is frequently employed as synonymous with איך, non-existence, and הבל, nothingness (Isa_40:17, Isa_40:23; Isa_49:4). The coming earth was at first waste and desolate, a formless, lifeless mass, rudis indigestaque moles, ὕληἄμορφος (Wis. 11:17) or χάος.
Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Johann (C.F.) Keil (1807-1888) & Franz Delitzsch (1813-1890)
It sounds right, but how does one 'prove' that?
Ditto. :)
FK: Tough to answer, since I believe that whatever love I have for God, COMES from God in the first place
In that case what kind of a "reward" is it? We do not reward our cars for driving us.
FK: Tough to answer, since I believe that whatever love I have for God, COMES from God in the first place
In that case what kind of a "reward" is it? We do not reward our cars for driving us.
In a nutshell, that is Reformed theology, except that even our "whims" are not our whims. God is in control; He presses all the buttons. We are just reag dolls.
See post 2,109
FK is well versed in Catholic/Orthodox theology. he was coached by another Freeper (Koloktoronis) who is currenlty on vacation. FK knows about dying unto onself, and especially about theosis/salvation, trust me. He just doesn't believe it.
I'm afraid that the whole truth on this is above my pay grade. :) However, as Marlowe pointed out, regardless of our soteriologies, God did create the lost knowing they would be lost. (Cruel?) Is it better to have never existed, or to spend eternity in hell? Based on what little I know, I would choose the former. But God does what He does for His own reasons, in many cases incomprehensible by us now.
Protestants say that saving grace is required and they are right. But what they’re missing is all the other things that are required as well.
Sure, other things are required as well, such as perseverance. However, we see all those things as being part of a "package deal" that automatically go with saving grace, based on God's Biblical promises. If one is a true believer, then perseverance MUST follow, etc. If one professes faith, but does not persevere, then he was never a true believer. He was of a "Lord, Lord" type.
We keep coming back to the problem with private interpretation. That’s why the Bible says not to do it.
Well, you have to admit that the Apostolic Church defines private interpretation as anything which disagrees with it! :) I don't recall a Biblical edict to follow the Pope, etc. :)
Sorry, in my religion, the only one who is glorified is God.
There was an age before the one we are now in. That was the age in which Satan fell, taking many of God's children with him. The elect stood against him then and that is why they are The Elect. They earned it.
I have no clue where this is coming from. It's not Christian.
He created this 2nd age to give mankind another chance to follow God. Everything, or everyone, has not been predestined. They have a choice to make.
Our Bible begins with "In the beginning...." there is no "prior age" in Christianity.
I don't think we are pre-programmed but we are going to fulfill His plan. He doesn't "make" anyone evil. They choose that themselves.
LOL! We choose but He is in "control?"
Our job is to teach His Word and He will open the eyes and ears of those that are meant to be. The others, because of what was done in the first age, must choose Him on their own - free will.
Wow!!!
The "heavens and earth" that pass away are the 2nd heaven and earth AGE, not the actual earth. All that is "burned up" are the evil rudiments. Then, we go into our 3rd age - eternity.
Geeez...and you call yourself Christian?
Kosta: We have already had near misses with such bodies (two of them) in the last couple of years. The trajectory of collision is the only predetermined certainty known but to God.
Ping-Pong: As God is coming to earth He will not allow that to happen
Huh?
2Peter 3:10.But the day of the Lord, will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Precisely. Very visionary and prophetic. Sounds just like an asteroid coming from the direction of the Sun, undetected. The only plausible thing in a real world: a noisy event where "the elements shall melt with fervent heat" as the planet burns up. We live in a universe where such things happen all the time.
13.Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
This world has to end before we go there...
What exactly does that verse mean? It sounds so poetic but it's not true.
I don't know where you are coming up with these conclusions, FK. If god made all human in His image, I have trouble believeing he created some for destruction and evil and other for righteousness and salvation. They are all His creation and what he creates is good. Whether you hold on to the Gnostic idea of precreated souls or whether God puts a soul in every new human being at conception, those created souls are not made defective by God's hands.
We are destined to hell because we lost our likeness to God by our own choices. Those who come to God are saved. Those who don't are lost. God did not predestin any human being to hell. Where does the Bible say that God predestined us to hell?
It seems to me that when we discuss God's absolute foreknowledge of everything that we often overlook that this life we are now living is the very first time it has ever been lived. While God inhabits past/present/future, I do not. I am not of the future, nor of the past. I am now, and my life is now.
And NOW is the day of salvation.
What this means is that our choices do matter. They will be choices for sin and depravity, yet in the mix will come the Spirit of the Lord, and He will direct His will, even if it involves shaping my will.
Why me?
I don't know. His choice.
If you begin at verse 9...... 'Thus said the Lord Jehovah: No son of a stranger, uncircumcised of heart, and uncircumcised of flesh, cometh in unto My sanctuary, even any son of a stranger, who [is] in the midst of the sons of Israel, 10 but -- the Levites who have gone far off from me, in the wandering of Israel when they went astray from Me after their idols, and they have borne their iniquity. 11 And they have been in My sanctuary ministrants, overseers at the gates of the house, and ministrants at the house; they slay the burnt-offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they stand before them to serve them. 12 Because that they serve them before their idols, and have been to the house of Israel for a stumbling-block of iniquity, therefore I have lifted up my hand against them -- an affirmation of the Lord Jehovah -- and they have borne their iniquity. 13 And they draw not nigh unto Me to act as My priest, and to draw nigh unto any of My holy things, unto the holy of holies, and they have borne their shame and their abominations that they have done, 14 and I made them keepers of the charge of the house, for all its service and for all that is done in it. These Levites who did not keep control of God's sanctuary ....and allowed Israel to drift away will serve during the Millennium but will be prevented from coming near The Lord as a consequence of their sins. 15 'And the priests, the Levites, sons of Zadok, who have kept the charge of My sanctuary in the wandering of the sons of Israel from off Me, they draw near unto Me to serve Me, and have stood before Me, to bring near to Me fat and blood -- an affirmation of the Lord Jehovah: 16 they come in unto My sanctuary, and they draw near unto My table to serve Me, and they have kept My charge.
It appears that there will be two classes of priests serving during the Millennium......but both classes will be Levitical. I believe the second group will be very small. [Ezekiel 48:11]
What would you say makes you uncomfortable with the idea that God really makes the choice? I mean, He made us, He owns us. If He is the potter, why shouldn't He be able to determine what is to become of us?
I would be interested. I'm not sure where you are deducing the information from that fills in these blanks.
FK, I am a Christian. Gospels define my faith. OT is good, but it is a foreshadowing of the Gospels. God's revelation was gradual. Prov 16:4 says God creates wicked people. Well, if David believed it it's okay because the Jews believed it, because we know their revelation was incomplete.
Matt 22:14 : "For many are invited, but few are chosen."
Cherry-picking out of context, FK. Verse 8 tells us why they were not chosen: because of how they came to the wedding (inappropriately dressed!)
"Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come"—Mat 22:8
The reason they were rejected is not because the king didn't want them, but because they showed up in disrespect. It was their doing. They condmend themselves.
Rom 9:9-13
This is all about God's foreknowledge...not predestination. He is simply saying that He knows what choices we will make. There is nothing in those verses that suggests God decided who shall serve whom; rather, God knows the older will serve younger (and from the context of that section of the OT we know that this was by Esau's own poor choices). Because God (fore)knew what choices Esau will make God "hated" him (anthropomorphically speaking), the way you "hate" someone you know is driving himself into bancriopsy by squanders his blessings over nothing.
Then man has power over God's will
The New Testament teaches us that it's not God's will (or "pleasure") that men should suffer and perish. The very concept of sin is rejecting God's will, separation from God. It is not a matter of God's power, but of His permission. He allows us to make choices. His plan includes them.
God leads His elect to salvation and leaves the reprobate alone to their own wickedness
But how did they get to be wicked? Did He not "predestine" them (according to the Reformed theology) to become wicked before they were born? (note here that in your theology then the original Sin, Adam and Eve's fall, has nothing to do with the wickedness of the wicked, since the wicked were predestined to be wicked before the foundation of the world).
No one can hear God's voice without having first been prepared. Some are not prepared. That doesn't make it God's "fault"
If you believe God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and give Him credit for it, then how can you not give credit to God for not giving hearing tot hose who don't hear His voice? It's not His "fault," then, but His doing!
Everyone else will see that this emperor has no clothes, yet some will maintain that God in the Reformed theology somehow doesn't get "credit" for the reprobate, the wicked, the evildoers, or for the evil itself!
Why not just confess it: the Reformed believe that God is the author of evil, and be done with it?
Until Adam sinned He didn't have to reject anyone. After he sinned, God had to reject EVERYONE, unless He provided a way out, which He did for some but not all
FK, the Reformed keep saying that God chose His "elect" elite from before foundations of the world! By the same token, He had to reject "those" who were predestined to perdition. This had to happen before Adam and Eve. So, their fall has nothing to do with everyone's destiny.
What is even more disturbing is that this suggests pre-existence of the souls, which is a pagan and Gnostic belief shared by ancient Jews, a belief which was resolutely condemned with the condemnation of Origen, who championed such heresy, and has no place in a Christian denomination.
As believers, we are His instruments to use as He sees fit
I never though of my children as my "instruments." God of the Gospels teaches us to look at our children as our images.
And He is also the Potter and we are the clay. The Potter can do whatever He wants with His clay, and He doesn't need any help or cooperation from the clay
Yes, but God chooses only good. So, while His choices are unlimited, they are all and always good.
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