Posted on 12/28/2008 8:28:44 AM PST by Gamecock
Eventually Swaggart repented and was restored. As you stated the RCC has made up this hieratic offices where in the NT everyone is part of the body there is no hierarchy except that Christ is the head of the body. The RCC is designed after the Roman Empire with all it different offices layer upon layer until you finally get to the top the Pope.
(No, it doesn't taste like chicken.)
As I said, from our POV what God revealed in Scripture was "this is my body ... this is the cup of my blood, and what we SEE looks like bread (okay, crackers) and wine. The doctrine on Transubstantiation is, at heart, "Yep. Looks like X but IS Y." and then some detailed consideration of consequences, like what if the what-used-to-be-bread goes bad.
The mystery, the miracle is preserved in all its ineffabilitynessitude.
(Honest, it was just eggnog ...)
And I see Paul appointing elders and bishops, and the Apostles organizing deacons so that the Apostles will have more time for prayers and preaching.
I think there is room in there for a proto-hieratic structure.
I would have said that the secular pattern for SOME of the structures of the Papacy was the Byzantine empire.
I would also say that the modern thinking about imperial styles of government is based too much on Star Wars and not enough on reality - and, as it applies to the Calflick Church, rarely if ever takes into account the principle of subsidiarity or the difference between our modern English-based legal system and the more catch-as-catch-can system of the Catholic Church, where you have one law and 50k exceptions, waivers, indults, and whatnot.
We have to do better than Classix Comix when it comes down to real live history. Is it y'all's contention that back in the early 5th century, when the Emperor Honorius skedaddled to Ravenna as Alaric drew near, Pope Innocent should have lifted his skirts to avoid soiling them with such secular matters, allowed the city of Rome to fall into chaos, and done nothing to dissuade Alaric and his merry band of Goths from killing most of the inhabitants after raping many of the women?
Yeah, the boy evidently had some political power. And it's a lucky thing for thousands of people that he did.
The Church managed to maintain a precarious unity when the empire was divided and "barbarian" generals fought sometimes for and sometimes against this or that emperor. The actual unity, however precarious, of the Church was enough to give it clout that preserved some traces of peace and order when all around them things were falling apart.
It's easy from the point of view of several hundred years of nation states to look back with contempt on the comparative political dunderheadedness of the Church and medieval and Gothic Europe. I think that it's good to remember Thom Sowell and to ask oneself, "Compared to what?". Compared to what seemed about to happen if Pope Innocent did not intervene, Alaric accepting gold, silver, and pepper and when he did sack the place keeping rape and slaughter down to a minimum was a now under-appreciated good thing.
The myth of the powerful Roman Church just doesn't stand in the face of the martyrdom on 12/29/1170 of Thomas a Becket -- 838 years ago, or of the martyrdoms in the 13th century of Dominicans among others, sometimes for maintaining the seal of the confessional.
There was a tension between Church and Crown (or Coronet when the local king had insufficient control of the even more local barons), which mitigated the chaos that entered in when the empire effectively dissolved.
Yeah, there were jerks and bad guys in the Church. I don't think we had or have a monopoly. But the image of a totalitarian ecclesiastical organization does not stand up to scrutiny. If it were true, would the Reformation and the subsequent fissiparation of various Protestant bodies have succeeded so quickly?
But people like their bogeymen. Would Albigensianism been big enough for Dominic to start an order to evangelize the heretics? Would the Pope have ended up in Avignon?
Personally I think the Catholic Church has always been far more like a stew on the boil than like a well-ordered imperial bureaucracy -- a thing which has existed rarely and briefly in the West in any event.
Happy and blessed New Year, guys! I’m packing it in for the night.
***I think you guys overstate the oogedy-boogedy factor of transubstantiation. It’s just a way of saying that the “what-it-is” changes and the what-it-looks/tastes/feels like doesn’t.***
That and the rest is a nice spin making it appear that it’s no big deal that you got the whole Christ flying all over the universe like some kewl sci-fi story but when you start adding a few other kewl sci-fi stories into a corpus the people tend to get a little goofy and the next thing you know their finding the Virgin Mary in a block of cheese.
If I disagree with your reaction to a doctrine which the rest of your post shows you don't understand that's spin?
This is getting old. And it's only January 2nd!
Happy new year. Let me know if you ever get interested in what we actually believe instead of what a bunch of anti-Catholics tell you we believe. But, in almost the words of Bob Dylan, don't criticize what you won't understand.
***Let me know if you ever get interested in what we actually believe instead of what a bunch of anti-Catholics tell you we believe.***
I see you’ve resorted to pulling out the “sine qua non” of Catholic apologetics.
If you really want to know what the Church believes, and why, head on over to: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM
The Prologue begins:
I. The life of man - to know and love God
1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.
2 So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the gospel: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”4 Strengthened by this mission, the apostles “went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it.”5
3 Those who with God’s help have welcomed Christ’s call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ’s faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer.6
Interested?
And, what is the connection between some person claiming to see an image of a sacred personage and the manner of the presence of Christ in the Sacrament?
Further, to address your original slander, to you get that, to judge by the title of this thread, Orthodox Presbyterians think that there is some kind of "Real Presence" in the Lord's Supper. THAT would be the oogedy-boogedy part. To discuss the various possible accounts of that presence, to determine in what respect it is localizable and in what respect not, to consider what "real" might mean, to wonder if Christ is present in the sacrament as in a place, questions of this kind are the matter of "transubstantiation". The attack seems, as usual, to be based on trying to force on Catholics the post-enlightenment, modern sense of substance, and then to attack their manner of arguing when they make the obvious observation that Aquinas meant one thing by "substance" and most modern people mean quite another thing.
That is NOT to deny that we think the Eucharistic presence is NOT wonderful or miraculous. There is something far more amazing than the merely weird going on here.
And many wonderful hymns of adoration were written by Thomas Aquinas. But to someone who is more interested in dialogue and truth than in abuse distinguishing between hymnody and theology, between praise and description might be helpful.
It's not the coarseness or vulgarity of the language in "the whole Christ flying all over the universe like some kewl sci-fi story," that led to my suggestion that you might not understand the actual teaching. It was that "flying all over the universe" contradicts what Aquinas says in Article 5, Question 76 of the Tertia Pars of the Summa that "Christ's body is not in this sacrament as in a place," and "Hence in no way is Christ's body locally in this sacrament."
Further in the "sed contra" of Article 6 of that question he says,"On the contrary, ... . But Christ's body is at rest in heaven. Therefore it is not movably in this sacrament."
So, if it 's not locally or movably in the sacrament but is at rest in heaven, it doesn't have to change place to be there, so the remark indicates that Aquinas's explanation of teaching is not understood.
Or do you claim to understand Aquinas better than he understands himself, and that therefore any suggestion that you might have something to learn about what he say is some kind of trick?
To clarify:
(1)YOU say you got the whole Christ flying all over the universe like some kewl sci-fi story ... "
(2)BUT I have now shown that the classic discussion of the doctrine has Christ's body at rest in heaven.
(3)In other words, the most generous explanation of your dismissive mischaracterization of our teaching is that you do not understand it -- an explanation that is more generous than saying you misstated it because you don't care about what we teach, you just want to attack us.
But the suggestion that you might have something yet to learn about the doctrine and the offer to help with that learning if you were interested is characterized as, well as some sine qua non, which I don't get in the context.
My first remark is called spin, and then my observation of the obvious misunderstanding of the doctrine is (I think, I'm not sure I understood your remark) treated as though it were some kind of argumentative gambit.
Maybe you have an opinion on a similar question:
If you have red hair and somebody comes up to you and says, "I hate you because I hate blonds,"
AND if you then say,'But I'm a redhead," and he replies "That's just spin,"
and then you say,"Wow, maybe there's something wrong with your color vision," and he then says,"Oh that's just the sine qua non of your apologetics,"
do you think the person you're talking to is at all interested in the color of your hair? Or is he merely interested in having a disagreement for the sake of disagreement? Or what?
I urge you to check out the Heidelberg Catechism
Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?
Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, (a) am not my own, (b) but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; (c) who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, (d) and delivered me from all the power of the devil; (e) and so preserves me (f) that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; (g) yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, (h) and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, (i) and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him. (j)
Yes.
And, what is the connection between some person claiming to see an image of a sacred personage and the manner of the presence of Christ in the Sacrament?
Transubstantiation.
Further, to address your original slander, to you get that, to judge by the title of this thread, Orthodox Presbyterians think that there is some kind of "Real Presence" in the Lord's Supper.
Yes.
To discuss the various possible accounts of that presence, to determine in what respect it is localizable and in what respect not, to consider what "real" might mean, to wonder if Christ is present in the sacrament as in a place, questions of this kind are the matter of "transubstantiation".
No, they are questions of the Sacraments.
The attack seems, as usual, to be based on trying to force on Catholics the post-enlightenment, modern sense of substance, and then to attack their manner of arguing when they make the obvious observation that Aquinas meant one thing by "substance" and most modern people mean quite another thing.
Calvin was not post-enlightenment. Your argument does not follow.
It's not the coarseness or vulgarity of the language in "the whole Christ flying all over the universe like some kewl sci-fi story," that led to my suggestion that you might not understand the actual teaching. It was that "flying all over the universe" contradicts what Aquinas says in Article 5, Question 76 of the Tertia Pars of the Summa that "Christ's body is not in this sacrament as in a place," and "Hence in no way is Christ's body locally in this sacrament." Further in the "sed contra" of Article 6 of that question he says,"On the contrary, ... . But Christ's body is at rest in heaven. Therefore it is not movably in this sacrament." So, if it 's not locally or movably in the sacrament but is at rest in heaven, it doesn't have to change place to be there, so the remark indicates that Aquinas's explanation of teaching is not understood.
Aquinas goes through a tortured argument in Article 3 trying to differentiate between substance and dimension. At the end of the day some of the accidents of Christ, his body and blood, are said to be under the elements. How do those accidents get from heaven to here?
How is transubstantiation involved with an image (accident? appearance? NOT the "substance") of Mary in a toasted cheese sandwich? Where is the claim made that Mary is substantially in something with the appearance of a lady imposed on the appearance (and one supposes the substance) of toasted bread and cheddar? (Hint: NOWHERE!)
You say that wondering about what "real" and "present" mean are questions of the sacraments. So whenever somebody answers a roll call with "present" or when someone says, "it's the real deal," those are sacramental statements? I don't see how that can be the case. While theological conversations speedily fall into jargon, the words used have, or at one time had, more general meaning. "Real" is a very interesting word in its history and meaning. But we use it comfortably in everyday speech, as we do present, without a moments contemplation of what it might mean to "be before or 'in front of'" something.
In that connection, I think we have to deal with the way for many "spiritual" means "not real". For the gentiles, to say "We'll be with you in spirit," means, "We won't be with you, but we'll think about you briefly," or "We agree with you, though we are not there to support you," or even "We probably agree with you but we're not certain yet." So when Calvin says that Christ's real presence in the sacrament is spiritual, at some point somebody's going to have to come along and say what all those words mean.
And then somebody who disagrees with him will avoid dealing with what he say but instead will call his efforts "tortured." Calvin was not post-enlightenment. Your argument does not follow.
I didn't make an argument, I proposed a thesis. There's no argument (yet) to follow anything. I think that Calvin, Zwingli, and Cranmer lay out not so much a theology as a kind of bounds for future reform theology if the Eucharist. I've said before (on the tenuous assumption that Heidegger can be rightly described as coherent) that when I was reading Cranmer I had the feeling that there did not yet exist the metaphysical to say what he was trying to say about how Jesus is involved with the Lord's Supper. I think at the time of Luther and Calvin the Aristotelian framework was (undeservedly IMHO) falling into disrepute but nothing had been developed to replace it.
What made and makes Aquinas prominent is that what he was able to nail down more securely within a framework what has been less coherently said by his predecessors. Sometimes it seems that since the Reformation some eschew the very notion of a framework and just say the same thing louder and with more and more abuse and aspersions on those who ask for some kind of clarity. IMHO any discussion of "real", "presence", and "spiritual" is going to be tortured at some point.
At the end of the day some of the accidents of Christ, his body and blood, are said to be under the elements. How do those accidents get from heaven to here?
That is not what we teach. And even if we did teach that Body and Blood were accidents, your saying they got from Heaven to here at least suggests that you think that we teach they ARE here as in a place. But the articles to which I referred argue that they are not, not at the end of the day and not since at least the Ascension.
So I am not to say that there's a misunderstanding of our doctrine, but you say the "accidents" are "here" while I think the doctrine teaches that they aren't here and they aren't accidents.
Aquinas goes through a tortured argument in Article 3 trying to differentiate between substance and dimension.
Ah, the angels on the head of a pin question. Does a point have dimension or only location? But I digress.
What is tortured, the argument or the person trying to understand it? A crooked leg can be tortured by a straight splint, but the torture is in the leg, not the splint, and the leg will eventually be the better for it.
Once you start down the path of metaphysical speculations all sorts of phenomenon are attributed to one kind or another metaphysical manifestation. Mary appearances, stigmatas, exorcisms,.... No, these faithful have not applied Aristotelian metaphysics to these phenomenon but if the Church is playing these games why can't the faithful? It should be as obvious as the nose on your face. It was for the Reformers.
In fact, I read one Catholic writer, in his book Principles of Catholic Theology, who expressed the very same sentiments:
In its mixture of ecclesiological positivism and metaphysical speculation, the theology of the late Middle Ages was, to a large extent, an ironic reflection of the spiritual reality of the Church behind which was barely concealed that the Church had lost her meaningful context. (emphasis mine)
-Joseph Ratzinger
So it seems at least that Ratzinger figured out the problem.
So when Calvin says that Christ's real presence in the sacrament is spiritual, at some point somebody's going to have to come along and say what all those words mean.
It's really not that difficult to figure out. Calvin despised metaphysical speculations so the formula is really quite concrete. The Spirit is the means by which we partake of the body and blood. He really kept Christ localized. In the final analysis he didn't try to break down the mystery to fit a pagan philosophy.
What made and makes Aquinas prominent is that what he was able to nail down more securely within a framework what has been less coherently said by his predecessors. Sometimes it seems that since the Reformation some eschew the very notion of a framework and just say the same thing louder and with more and more abuse and aspersions on those who ask for some kind of clarity. IMHO any discussion of "real", "presence", and "spiritual" is going to be tortured at some point.
I don't have a problem with "framework" but when that framework is wrong or goes beyond special revelation you have to know when to flush the framework down the toilet.
So I am not to say that there's a misunderstanding of our doctrine, but you say the "accidents" are "here" while I think the doctrine teaches that they aren't here and they aren't accidents.
Ok, I concede the accidents part so we are back to the whole Christ. But as to the "here", well of course it must be. The bread and wine are converted to the whole Christ, it's here! But now we have a Christ in heaven and innumerable Christs here. Apparently Christ clones himself for every altar.
Ah, the angels on the head of a pin question.
Indeed!
In fact, I can't defend it, and don't want to. I quote Aquinas about Jesus being in a place, and I'm not going to defend tha opposite of what he says. It's hard enough defending what he DOES say!
You call the notion you are arguing against "transubstantiation", but it's different from what we call "transubstantiation." I'm not going to leave my home to go defend some chimera.
If anybody thinks the difference between substance and dimension is necessarily "tortured" that person needs to work on the angels on the head of a pin question.
What and how many are the dimensions of Love? What is the volume of justice? What is the weight of beauty? Is love real? Is there something rightly called love?
Heck, we might as well if God takes up space or has a specific gravity. And yet we speak of God as substantial, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit being consubstantial.
Clearly some people think a substance must take up space. Clearly they are not using the word as it was used at Nicea and Chalcedon.
It's all very well to "despise metaphysical speculation," but one needs to look out for saying words without meaning. If Calvin is going to affirm the Doctrine of the Trinity, he is in the realm where ousia, essentia and substantia
are the common tongue.
And among those carlessly used words would be the claims that Aquinas explains the Eucharist. No one can. It's a miracle and mystery every time it happens. But when Catholics talk about the Real Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ we get asked questions. When we answer them we get told we are indulging in tortured explanations. Then we get told that it if our fault that people misunderstand what we say.
Since before I was a Catholic I've held that "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds," that Lucifer was possibly the greatest angel, that generally the worst is the corruption of the best. I see nothing intrinsically wrong with stigmata and exorcisms. I also see that when word gets out about both there are going to be some perverted (in the strict sense of the word) reactions, imitations, etc. I do not see that people who are careless with their theology can be blamed on people who are any more than quacks can be blamed on skilled physicians.
In other words, that there are quacks is no indication that medicine generally is a fraud. It might be; it might not be. But someone who has decided for other reasons that medicine is a fraud will be inclined to blame quacks on it.
Similarly, that there are perversions of Catholic orthodoxy is not, in itself, competent to show that Catholic Orthodoxy is wrong. Making that argument might lead a Protestant to believe that Christian truth is wrong because it led to those dreadful Catholics!
LOL
What a hot mess.
As for me, I think that Ratzinger dude got it right:
In its mixture of ecclesiological positivism and metaphysical speculation, the theology of the late Middle Ages was, to a large extent, an ironic reflection of the spiritual reality of the Church behind which was barely concealed that the Church had lost her meaningful context.
You can have the last word.
Parsing and slicing are the very stuff of theology. So, yeah, I'll keep on doing it. And I think my questions about love and all that are worth pondering.
Where is the Ratzie quote from, please? I'm not bowled over by it because my pastor, who left a couple of months ago to become the "socius" or "right hand d00d" of the Prior of the Dominican Eastern Province had PapaBenXVI for a teacher at the Angelicum in Rome (and got a smile and a wave from him the last time he was in the throngs it St. Peter's square ....) AND Fr. Brian is no anti-Thomist. AND Fr. Dominic, who just left us to go for a doctorate on Sacramental Theology is like a Thomist squared, and even Fr. Gregory, with whom I go on motorcycle rides, is a major Thomist. AND our current pastor, Fr. Luke (all deze guys is Dominicans) with whom I organized a hysterical paintball day and we're going to do another against the Catholic Yout' Group of AU, is not anti-Thom, though not wildly or notoriously pro-Thom either.
In other words, neither the current Pope nor the previous one was all over dissing Thomism, though it's totally clear (and one of the reasons I really liked reading his stuff) that J2P2 was influenced by Heidegger and phenomenology generally.
But now I see that you are claiming to understand what we teach better than we do!
So it is wrong for us to suggest that Protestants don't understand our doctrine when they use words like "substance" or "corporeal" in ways which differ importantly from the use of the scholastics, but it is perfectly reasonable for Protestants to say that Catholics don't understand Catholic doctrine.
Oh, and I found the context out of which the Ratzinger quote was wrenched, by which wrenching its meaning was perverted. It was no blanket condemnation of ALL of late medieval theology but of a certain trend in attitude. As it was being used in this exchange it's a paper tiger.
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