Posted on 06/06/2013 3:50:50 PM PDT by NYer
Peter Kreeft is a great thinker and writer. I have quite a few books by him, and tend to re-read some of them, as they are so full and rich with illuminating content. They are so packed that I always seem to pick up points and nuances I missed in the first reading (sort of like when I read one of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's books, or one of Frank Sheed's books).
Here are a couple of Dr. Kreeft's books that I read first, and I would highly recommend them for everyone, young or old, new to the faith or not:
May the Holy Spirit who guided Peter Kreeft away from his erroneous thinking and to the light of genuine Truth, guide all others who are seriously seeking the Truth to that same genuine, precious light.
Have a great evening, and thanks again NYer for this article.
The author is a Catholic. That means he belongs to the Church that slapped down first Pelgianism and then semi-Pelagianism centuries before Calvin was hatched.
He's also a decent theologian, who can tell you all about exactly how and why he can't earn his way into heaven.
It's not actual scholarship worthy of an answer, just polemical handwaving and proof-by-blatant-assertion.
Everyone knows that the Papacy, like everything else, developed over time and didn't spring fullgrown into being in the first century like Athena from the head of Zeus. So what?
“The author is a Catholic. That means he belongs to the Church that slapped down first Pelgianism and then semi-Pelagianism centuries before Calvin was hatched.”
He belongs to the church today that puts out stuff like this:
From the Secret of the Rosary, endorsed by Pope Benedict:
“One day the King fell seriously ill and when he was given up for dead he found himself, in a vision, before the judgement seat of Our Lord. Many devils were there accusing him of all the sins he had committed and Our Lord as Sovereign Judge was just about to condemn him to hell when Our Lady appeared to intercede for him. She called for a pair of scales and had his sins placed in one of the balances whereas she put the rosary that he had always worn on the other scale, together with all the Rosaries that had been said because of his example. It was found that the Rosaries weighed more than his sins.
Looking at him with great kindness Our Lady said: “As a reward for this little honor that you paid me in wearing my Rosary, I have obtained a great grace for you from my Son. Your life will be spared for a few more years. See that you spend these years wisely, and do penance.”
When the King regained consciousness he cried out: “Blessed be the Rosary of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, by which I have been delivered from eternal damnation!”
After he had recovered his health he spent the rest of his life in spreading devotion to the Holy Rosary and said it faithfully every day.
People who love the Blessed Virgin out to follow the example of King Alphonsus and that of the saints whom I have mentioned so that they too may win other souls for the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. They will then receive great graces on earth and eternal life later on. “They that explain me shall have life everlasting life.” [1] Ecclus. 24:31”
Another story on how saying rosaries can earn you salvation:
“Later on, when she was at prayer she fell into ecstasy and had a vision of her soul appearing before the Supreme Judge. Saint Michael put all her penances and to her prayers on one side of the scale and all her sins and imperfections on the other. The tray of her good works were greatly outweighed by that of her sins and imperfections.
Filled with alarm, she cried out for mercy, imploring the help of the Blessed Virgin, her gracious advocate, who took the one and only Rosary she had said for her penance and dropped it on the tray of her good works. This one Rosary was so heavy that it weighed more than all her sins as well as her good works. Our Lady then reproved her for having refused to follow the counsel of her servant Dominic and for not saying the Rosary every day.
As soon as she came to herself she rushed and threw herself at the feet of Saint Dominic and told him all that had happened, begged his forgiveness and promised to say the Rosary faithfully every day. By this means she rose to Christian perfection and finally to the glory of everlasting life.”
http://www.rosary-center.org/secret.htm
Popes on the “sure and most efficacious means” for help from heaven:
“We constantly seek for help from Heaven - the sole means of effecting anything - that our labours and our care may obtain their wished for object. We deem that there could be no surer and more efficacious means to this end than by religion and piety to obtain the favour of the great Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, the guardian of our peace and the minister to us of heavenly grace, who is placed on the highest summit of power and glory in Heaven, in order that she may bestow the help of her patronage on men who through so many labours and dangers are striving to reach that eternal city. Now that the anniversary, therefore, of manifold and exceedingly great favours obtained by a Christian people through the devotion of the Rosary is at hand, We desire that that same devotion should be offered by the whole Catholic world with the greatest earnestness to the Blessed Virgin, that by her intercession her Divine Son may be appeased and softened in the evils which afflict us. And therefore We determined, Venerable Brethren, to despatch to you these letters in order that, informed of Our designs, your authority and zeal might excite the piety of your people to conform themselves to them.” (ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON DEVOTION OF THE ROSARY)
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_01091883_supremi-apostolatus-officio_en.html
The importance of the Rosary to a Pope:
“With these words, dear brothers and sisters, I set the first year of my Pontificate within the daily rhythm of the Rosary. Today, as I begin the twenty-fifth year of my service as the Successor of Peter, I wish to do the same. How many graces have I received in these years from the Blessed Virgin through the Rosary: Magnificat anima mea Dominum! I wish to lift up my thanks to the Lord in the words of his Most Holy Mother, under whose protection I have placed my Petrine ministry: Totus Tuus!” (ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II)
So, is this Semi-Pelagian, Pelagian, Synergistic, or Monergistic theology?
“Everyone knows that the Papacy, like everything else, developed over time”
The Roman assertion is that the Papacy did not develop over time. There was a Pope right after Peter. There was no 600+ years of tying to figure out that there was a supreme and universal pontiff in charge all along.
This is an example of playing fast-and-loose with the truth. Gregory never says that Alexandria and Antioch possess the same authority as Rome, but only that they have apostolic dignity deriving from the Apostle. And he says *that* only in a personal letter to another bishop, not something that would ever be a vehicle for a solemn magisterial exercise.
This whole silly claim grows out of Gregory's rejection of the title "universal bishop" (actually, "universal patriarch") claimed by John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople. The idea seems to be that Gregory didn't think he was the Pope, or didn't understand the Papacy to mean any sort of universal authority, or something.
Which is very odd, because Gregory denounced the Patriarch of Constantinople -- another bishop! -- as "antichrist" for assuming the title "Ecumenical Patriarch" (in Latin, "patriarcha universalis"). How could he have done that if he thought of himself as just another bishop among equals?
Gregory also wrote at the time that the see of Constantinople was subject to Rome, and that EVERY see was subject to Rome "if any fault is found among bishops", but equal "according to humility" otherwise.
The solution to the problem is really pretty simple. Gregory concluded that "patriarcha universalis" meant that John believed he was the only real bishop in the world (something that the Greek term "ecumenical patriarch" probably doesn't bear). This is not Catholic belief and never has been, hence Gregory's objection.
Peter was a Pope. That doesn't mean that the full understanding of the meaning and significance of the Papacy didn't develop over time. Pastor Aeternus wasn't written down in Peter's own hand and only uncorked in 1870.
Read Newman if you don't understand the concept of development of doctrine.
It's Catholic theology, except where it's just Catholic popular piety. Private revelations aren't binding as dogma.
“This is an example of playing fast-and-loose with the truth. Gregory never says that Alexandria and Antioch possess the same authority as Rome”
Yes he does:
“Wherefore though there are many apostles, yet with regard to the principality itself the See of the Prince of the apostles alone has grown strong in authority, which in three places is the See of one... Since then it is the See of one, and one See, over which by Divine authority three bishops now preside”
“And, though special honour to myself in no wise delights me, yet I greatly rejoiced because you, most holy ones, have given to yourselves what you have bestowed upon me.”
Why do you think the Romanist websites who quote him omit these lines entirely? Cuz they don’t say what they say?
“Which is very odd, because Gregory denounced the Patriarch of Constantinople — another bishop! — as “antichrist” for assuming the title “Ecumenical Patriarch” (in Latin, “patriarcha universalis”).”
From the Catechism:
882 ... the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.”402 “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.”403
883 “The college or body of bishops has no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, as its head.” As such, this college has “supreme and full authority over the universal Church; but this power cannot be exercised without the agreement of the Roman Pontiff.”404
Looks like a direct match to me.
*****But no one reads the Bible as an extraterrestrial or an angel; our church community provides the colored glasses through which we read, and the framework, or horizon, or limits within which we understand. *****
Ah yes, no one comes to the Bible without any influence from another.
“It’s Catholic theology, except where it’s just Catholic popular piety. Private revelations aren’t binding as dogma.”
“We decree and order that in the whole Catholic world, during this year, the devotion of the Rosary shall be solemnly celebrated by special and splendid services. From the first day of next October, therefore, until the second day of the November following, in every parish and, if the ecclesiastical authority deem it opportune and of use, in every chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin - let five decades of the Rosary be recited with the addition of the Litany of Loreto.” (SUPREMI APOSTOLATUS OFFICIO, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON DEVOTION OF THE ROSARY)
If your Popes decree Rosary prayers on the basis of it saving your soul and saving the world, is it binding dogma?
I asked you a question. I didn’t ask you if it’s theology or not, though apparently you confess that that is what it is. I asked you if it is Pelagian, Semi-Pelagian, Synergistic, or Monergistic theology?
I have read this before and really liked the majority of it, as he does a wonderful job expressing Catholicism.
One thing I take issue with is saying Catholics and any protestant group believe the same things about works. In fact, Catholics and protestants don’t even agree on what a work is or where it comes from. Catholics believe works are driven by grace through faith and they are of love (an action not a feeling) since God is love the works are not of self, but of God.
In Catholicism refusing God’s Will, even His Will for us to do loving, faithful works is a sin, especially participating in the Sacraments, which refusing is mortal sin. This is because we receive works by faith and the energy is grace who is the Holy Spirit. So if we refuse works we refuse God and thus sin.
It is true that there is no tally of works or value where any one work is more than another. God has different roles for each of us and every role is valuable. And if we refuse a faithful loving work and sin, we can still go to Heaven by Confessing that sin, which is then forgiven and “forgotten.”
So there are similarities with protestants (not the Confession part, of course), but I would never say they got it right and Catholics are either wrong or don’t understand. Protestants misrepresent works and the role they play in life and in salvation. Where protestants think faith excluding works means salvation, the truth is that faith is works its combination means salvation.
“Regarding the debate about faith and works: It’s like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most important.”
~C.S. Lewis
“Protestants misrepresent works and the role they play in life and in salvation. Where protestants think faith excluding works means salvation, the truth is that faith is works its combination means salvation.”
It’s impossible to misrepresent the role of works in salvation since it has no role in salvation at all:
Rom_11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
Faith is the gift of God in the first place, and not of ourselves.
1Co_12:3 ... no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
And God chooses us (we did not choose Him) for the purpose of producing fruit. Not that fruit led to us choosing Him. It is the result of salvation, and not its cause:
Joh_15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
We had a guest priest yesterday for Mass. Temperature in the 80s. He was a Carmalite, wearing the brown woolen cassock, with the alb and chausible over that.
After he cleansed the vessels and sat down after Communion he mopped his brow with the back of his hand, and I could tell he was sweating and probably thirsty. As he left the sanctuary and before he got to the Confessional I got him a bottle of water. (Not to call attention to myself, but to help someone who I could tell was suffering in the heat.) To me this was an act of corporal mercy/ work of love as you mentioned. It won’t get me to heaven — I have to work on that with Jesus.
Thanks for posting. I want to finish reading in the morning.
“Gregory also wrote at the time that the see of Constantinople was subject to Rome, “
Somehow I missed this the first time I saw your post, which is a shame since it is so brazen. The name ‘Rome’ doesn’t even occur in the letter to John. You can look all you want, it’s not there. When the topic of the “Apostolic See” comes up, Gregory says:
“Was it not the case, as your Fraternity knows, that the prelates of this Apostolic See which by the providence of God I serve, had the honour offered them of being called universal by the venerable Council of Chalcedon. But yet not one of them has ever wished to be called by such a title, or seized upon this ill-advised name, lest if, in virtue of the rank of the pontificate, he took to himself the glory of singularity, he might seem to have denied it to all his brethren.”
He refers to the “prelates,” in the plural, and the Apostolic See, as you know, is defined as One see in Three places over which three Bishops sit, as Gregory defines in his letter to the Bishop of Alexandria.
“Peter was a Pope. That doesn’t mean that the full understanding of the meaning and significance of the Papacy didn’t develop over time.”
Supposedly that was all settled in Matthew 16 and didn’t need someone to figure it out for Gregory that he really was in charge. Evidently even Peter didn’t get the memo at the time, since it was James, not Peter, who presided over and declared the judgment of the “church council” in Acts 15.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.