Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
That is certainly an unprovable argument, I hope you realize that. It also opens Pandora's Box for every deranged mind to claim divine visions and voices, as some sort of divinely inspired gnosis.
So, there is God "stuffed" inside the bread and "drowned" in the wine? Who comes up with these rationalizations?! All this so that it "makes sense?"
Why does it have to be "logical?" We have no clue why anything exists. We have no clue why God made endless universe that we will never see or reach. Nor can our minds begin to comprehend.
As I have been taught and understand it, Christ's body and blood literally are present in the bread and wine. The rest of what you said is pretty close though.
Pouring salt into the wound, eh Ha r le yD? :-)
Ma r low e
BTW, Dittos, jo kus!
What Jo said in 8731: the sale of indulgences was permitted by Pope Leo, but it was not a doctrinal infallible teaching.
Your 8748 does not say anything different. If I find time, I will comment on those quotes in detail, unless someone else does.
I detect a surprise in your voice, Joe. Propaganda has its methods, chief among them is frequent repetition of a slogan without regard to the truth thereof. As Catholics we are called to refute Protestant sloganeering with scripture, reason, and history each time it occurs, and without regard for the disposition and the personality of the propagandist. Each time a Protestant calumny is defeated, a new Crucifix is erected in the wasteland, even though the calumny, and therefore the refutation, remain the same.
And so as a whole St. Gregory is wrong in his speculative conclusions, however he is correct in his reading of Matthew 18: the unmerciful debtor's suffering is commensurate to the debt, is in the afterlife, and is finite.
I'm not sure that I could at all describe the man's actions as being a mere "lack of charity."
This is often my concern: that when I use "charity" with the mental image of merciful love, caritas, people imagine United Way or something.
The veniality of his lack of mercy is in that he is uninformed. The intensity of his demand alone does not make it mortal sin, because his disposition is to obtain justice. The hundred pence was indeed owed. The Bible does prescribe eye-for-eye repayument. There is no decision of an informed will to sin here, but an honest misunderstanding of the Divine Law.
essentially economic view of purgatory (a combination of unforgiven venial sins and uncompleted penances are quantified by God and must be paid for and cleansed by a certain amount of time in the fires of purgatory -- a man with a single unforgiven venial sin and no uncompleted penances will spend much less time in purgatory than will a man with a host of unforgiven venial sins and a lot of uncompleted penances.)
Would you not agree that the redemption of the Cross is forgiveness of sin but not abolition of justice? The unmerciful debtor is forgiven, because the torturers will release him. But justice is served also.
you do not claim that this passage is one cited by Catholic authorities as support for purgatory, but is rather your own personal reading
It is cited alongside the shorter passage in Matthew 5:25-26 as proof that a third intermediate place exists which is neither heaven or hell (St John Chrysostom thinks Christ is speaking of civil law there, see Homily 16). I never saw the distinctions I made regarding Matthew 18 explained verse by verse.
Yes, I think I have the same understanding. I suspected that Marlowe is not familiar with the entire essence/accident philosophical system, which he described as "doublespeak", so I tried to illustrate it roughly. I also mentioned my daughter looking like a boy. It was not a theological discourse on the theophanies.
The bread and wine is really bread and wine *and* it is really the Body and Blood of Christ.
When we all were making fun of Clinton's "meaning of is", it crossed my mind that this idiot just made America a notch dumber because the meaning of "is" is indeed worth of careful consideration, and he supplied a comical distraction from it. While I am sure your meaning is throughly Catholic, it does look heretically Lutheran at first blush, because the first "is" refers to the objective accident and the second "is" refers to the objective substance.
I'd say that scholasticism gave us a gnoseological tool to understand it better, in the platonic distinction between substance and accident, and so we use it. See, it is not like Calvin is saying Eucharist is ineffably "aummmm", -- which would not be half bad. He uses a language too. The difference is that his is sloppy, and Aquinas's is precise.
In a limited and precise sense, as you quotation shows. An interesting question is, whether the Popes could issue infallible doctrine before Papal Infallibility itself was dogmatically defined. Historically, I don't think there was a single instance when an infallible statement was made by the Pope outside of the consensus of the Magisterium. I am pinging Dionysius, Herman, and Gbcdoj because they might know.
The Pope is the only one who can issue indulgences…
Yes. Of course, he can delegate this office, but he alone can originate an indulgence, if that is the right word.
Pope Leo approved of the payment of indulgences…
But not infallibly. It appears that he only authorized one particular circumstance but made no ex cathedra doctrinal statement that indulgences generally can be sold.
Pope Leo defended the sale of indulgences…
You quote only says that he defended the issuance of indulgences, not specifically their sale. But even if he also defended their sale in some passage you do not quote, it would not elevate his approval of the sale of indulgences to the status of a Church doctrine.
The Council of Trent condemns the practice…
Which is the first time in the history of the Church that a doctrinal statement is made regarding the sale of indulgences. Nothing changed since then: indulgences are offered by the Pope but they are not sold, just like Trent determined.
Pope Pius cancelled the sale of Pope Leo’s indulgences…
In full accordance with Trent.
So were those people who purchased their way out of Purgatory sent back to purgatory when Pius cancelled their indulgences?
According to Catholic doctrine, if the pope binds something on earth (such as an indulgence) that it is bound in heaven. Thus those people must have been released in accordance with Leo's declaration of indulgence and sent back when Pius cancelled it.
No, they did not go back to purgatory. The indulgences that were sold were efficacious because a Pope issued them. All Pope Pius canceled was future sales.
Future sales. That is funny.
I would think the indulgences would be void ab-initio and those for whom they were purchased should have to go back to purgatory. The indulgences were obviously obtained in a illicit manner and thus are the fruit of the poisonous tree. Therefore any time off for said illicit donation must be added back to the soul for whom the indulgence was obtained.
Additionally since the sale of indulgences was illicit, the church's reciept of the funds for such indulgences is ill gotten gain, and therefore under the principles of equity, the church needs to return those funds to the families of those who purchased them.
The whole problem with the purchase of indulgences is that those who were rich were at a distinct advantage in getting to heaven. This is a direct contradiction of the Lord's own words wherein he stated flatly that it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. But the Church at that time made it easier for a rich man to get into heaven than anyone else. All the rich man needed to do was to drop a bucket of money at the gate (the gate in this case being the gate to the Vatican).
So by claiming that these rich people's indulgences were granted, you are denying and contradicting the words of the lord. Either these indulgences had no effect or the effect was to ensure that these people who thought they could buy a ticket to heaven may very well have purchased a ticket to hell. At any rate (the doctrine of binding nothwithstanding) I do not believe the Lord would honor any such indulgence no matter who granted it.
Alex: "While I am sure your meaning is throughly Catholic, it does look heretically Lutheran at first blush, because the first "is" refers to the objective accident and the second "is" refers to the objective substance."
Kosta: "But then you correct yourself when you say "changing them by the Holy Spirit,"...changing, Agrarian, means it is no longer bread and wine (in the Aristotelian sense), but rather the bread and wine become something else."
Yes, I spotted immediately what would cause a Lutheran to think that our views were the same. We believe that some sort of change takes place, and my original simple statement didn't reflect that.
But it would be a mistake to believe that our view is the same as that of Catholicism -- i.e. that we believe in transubstantiation in exactly the same way that the Scholastics defined it, or that our differences are irrelevant. The Orthodox language used is more mystical, more spiritual, and not focused on physicality and mechanics.
Steven Runciman regarding the exchange between Patriarch Jeremias and the Lutherans: "On the actual question of the change in the elements Jeremias is cautious. He avoids the word which is the exact Greek translation of "transubstantiation." The words that he uses do not necessarily imply material change. He does not explain the exact nature of the change, leaving it, rather, as a divine mystery. But the Lutheran view that though Christ's body and blood were present at the Sacrament there was no change in the elements seemed to him inadequate."
Bp. Kallistos (Ware): "The nature of the mystery that occurs in the bread and wine is signified by the term metabole ("sacramental change"). The Western term transubstantiation occurs only in some confessions of faith after the 17th century."
I would also like to include this nice summary by Matthew Steenberg of monachos.net in answer to a question on one of their discussion boards -- in it he articulates very nicely the Orthodox sense that in defining the particulars of the change at the Eucharist, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation not only goes beyond what we know, but in the process actually detracts from the mystery and lessens it:
"The fact that there is much (and there is, indeed much) truth encapsulated in this doctrine is something that has, in fact, been traditionally appreciated by most Orthodox theologians. Such theologians have, for example, usually been willing to note the much closer proximity between the understanding that lies behind this view and that of the Orthodox Church, as compared, for example, with the notion of consubstantiation as espoused in other Christian bodies.
But it is not so much the value of the positive theological statements of the dogma of transubstantiation that has 'gone against the grain' of Orthodox thought (though, admittedly, there are problems here, too). Rather, it is the underlying issue of the distintegration of holy mystery that comes from the problems inherent in systematisation - any systematisation.... The Orthodox tendency not to systematise is in fact a vastly important aspect of its approach to the living mystery of theology. It is not just the character of the consecration of the holy Eucharist that is influenced here: we also have no catechism, no difinitive volume on dogmatics. To mysterion pisteos, the mystery of the Faith, is paramount, for it is only in the life of the mystery that God is encountered and not just rationally apprehended.
With particular attention to the Eucharist: The dogma of transubstantiation raises many points that are, in their own right, not inherently objectionable. That God is 'under' the elements is a statement that echoes the sentiments of many an Orthodox Father. Still, if we formulate a schema, a system of dogma, that defines God's presence in the Eucharist as 'under the elements', we limit the reality of the mystery. It is a true claim, but it is far, far from a whole claim. God is under the elements; but we firmly believe also that He is the elements.
As a second example, the notion of the ontological essences of the offered gifts (bread and wine) changing to the divine nature of the body and blood of God, whilst the sensible accidentals of those gifts (e.g. taste, form, scent) remain the same, also reflects statements offered by certain among the Orthodox Fathers (though not, by far, all). However, even if we hypothetically accept such a 'model', it can be at best only allegorical, only relational. Stepping back for a moment, we must ask: just what is the ousia of bread? Can we authentically define with such linguistic or philosophical precision the metaphysical properties of elements that we, in some sense, must ourselves invent in order to make possible our explanation?
It is in the spirit of such questions that Orthodoxy tends away from the systematisation of such a mystery. We will (often) use language and concepts which, for example, you might find embraced in such a dogma as transubstantiation, as allegorical, relational descriptions valid within a specific context of discussion. But to take such language, such concepts, and formulate from them a schematic, metaphysical description of the 'mechanics' of the consecration, is in a very real sense to limit the effective value of the mystery of the sacrament itself. The Eucharist, like all elements of the Orthodox faith, can ultimately be apprehended only apophatically; and at their hearts, apophasis and dogmatic rationalism are not brothers."
Gotta run again.
"Would you not agree that the redemption of the Cross is forgiveness of sin but not abolition of justice?"
The forgiveness of sin without the need to pay anything *is* God's justice. It is mistaken views of justice as being quantifiable retribution, punishment, debt, etc... in a sense that would satisfy us as human beings that would even lead one to believe that such forgiveness might possibly be an abolition of justice.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, though.
There is no practical difference, as far as I am aware, between how an Orthodox priest treats the Holy Mysteries and how a Catholic priest treats what he considers to be transubstantiated elements.
Every crumb and drop is consumed by someone, with an effort not to spill or drop any. I do not believe that the Catholic Church would require a Catholic priest to eat the carpet onto which the wine spilled, but would likewise have other, reverent, means of disposal, just as we do. I will ping Alex to make sure he agrees with this portrayal.
To consume is preferred, because that is what the Holy Mysteries are given to us for. They are not given to us to burn or bury -- those means of "clean-up" are practical approaches when the preferred means is impossible.
It is possible that a traditional Catholic priest would feel more of a sense of legalistic urgency about it than would an Orthodox priest, who would, I guess, be more relaxed, even if equally fastidious about it. This would be in keeping with the general tenor of our respective approaches. I don't know, but I would imagine that were you to observe an Orthodox priest at Liturgy, you would think just as much idol worship was going on as at a Mass -- perhaps more, since we have all of that incense, all of those icons that we kiss, and make the sign of the cross more in 10 minutes of the Liturgy than do most Catholics in the course of an entire Mass these days. :-)
Yes. You've identified the generic problem with simony: exchange of supernatural value for temporal value.
Whether Pope Leo indulgences were valid is another matter. They were simply because he had the authority to issue them, even if they were a bad idea generally speaking. Christ did not tell St. Peter "as long as you use the Keys in a particular way, I will bind and loose what you bind and loose". The promise, rather, was unconditional. What if St. Peter were to err? Christ foresaw that (Luke 22:31-32) but told Peter that He will pray for him so he does not fail in his faith and convert others. This means that a temporal decision that falls outside of the eternal doctrinal teaching is still valid under the unconditional authority of the Petrine Keys.
I understand the concern with systematization, but I do not think that the Catholics are unaware of it. At any rate, the difference that you explain is a difference in approach, -- a gnoseological difference rather than ontological one. I do not detect any difference in what we believe about the Eucharist, but there is indeed a significant difference in how we express the belief.
So when Pope John Paul II kisses the Koran and states that good Muslims can get to heaven, does that mean that the gospel is no longer the singular method of obtaining salvation? Is that new plan of salvation now bound in heaven?
What if some benevolent Pope someday decides to declare the salvation of every man who ever lived? What is to stop that, and why wouldn't the Pope want to make such a declaration. Is it not in line with the Catholic teaching of 1 Tim 2:4?
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