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.
What man ought to do is not the same as what man can do. Fallen, arrogant man is responsible to a Sovereign God, as all is subject to and responsible to the Sovereign God. However, fallen man is in a state of spiritual blindness and death, indeed is born and lives his life on earth in open and continuous rebellion and rejection of God. God in His Providential Free Will exercises His Free Will to choose to give new life to those whom He Wills, which is exactly what the teaching of Christ and Apostolic teaching of Scripture clearly teaches. Where both the Romans and Greeks went astray was the acceptance of Aristotelian concepts of "free will", that ultimately makes man's will sovereign, and makes man responsible for his own salvation, whereby God looks down on man and rewards him for making the right decision, thus finding some inherent goodness in man that makes God reward him with heaven. God is telling us that we do have a say in our destiny. He offers us salvation. Ours is to accept it and give ourselves to Him.
Thus you are the ultimate cause of salvation.
Do not place ‘church’ above scripture, do not place mortal flesh and sinful egos above The Word.
Amen.
I really don't have a firm understanding of these issues, so let me ask you why Heaven only becomes a place after we receive our glorified bodies?
Well, terms like "place" are relative to this space/time continuum, and denote extension in spatial dimensions as we know them in the cosmos. Therefore, we and Scripture speak in terms of relationship, and not in spatial terms.
Even if a disembodied spirit is, shall we say, "massless", why would that preclude a Heaven that is a place?
I'm not neccessarily saying that it isn't. However, I'm relaying the terms that Scripture uses, and where Scripture is silent, I dare not shout.
For example, what happened to the bodies of Enoch, Elijah, Moses(?), and resurrected Jesus?
Moses died an earthly death. So, we can take Moses out of that list. As for the others, Scripture says they ascended into heaven, and no more. Where Scripture is silent, I prefer not to speak.
To reject that there are no innocent children is to reject the doctrine of Original Sin. Do you reject the doctrine of Original Sin?
St. Augustine based his belief in paedo-baptism on the reality of Original Sin being inherited by each newborn from Adam through the parents, thus no children were "innocent".
Yes, I fully agree. If they are not in communion, then whatever they disagree on can't be likened to eating crackers in bed. :) And of course you are right that there are certain core beliefs among Protestants that link us together if only to define what Christianity is. Unfortunately, many claim to be Protestant Christians when their beliefs do not meet even the most basic Biblical standards.
Whether they admit it or not, many so called "Protestants" today are functional Roman Catholics and semi-pelagians.
RC Sproul has a marvelous book on this topic titled: "The Pelagian Captivity of the Church".
We can trace the slow infiltration of semi-pelagianism from John Cassian onward to today.
In that case we should all believe one and the same thing. This is not the case, therefore your theory fails. Individual interpretation of the Bible is unbiblical.
I do believe that Calvin taught that children who die before an age of accountability (whatever that is assumed to be)are of the elect and will be in heaven. I know that my pastor and I had some disagreements about this. He felt that it was extra-Biblical. And it may be. I am not sure which way I fall on this.
***Individual interpretation of the Bible is unbiblical.***
And a camel is a horse designed by a committee.
If you get any group of men together, they will agree on very little and disagree about a very lot. Just because you have some church fathers agreeing about any thing, you can be certain that some sort of compromise had to occur.
Well, since you do not agree with your church or with every other EO on everything, which you have proven by taking a stance that the OT is "Jewish myths", in opposition to the position of your church, then your theory is a failure.
Individual interpretation of the Bible is unbiblical.
Then why do you disagree with your church and other EOs so much?
Do you believe that Cain is Adam’s biological son through intercourse with Eve? Yes or no?
I am not aware of Calvin teaching that. I do know that Calvin trusted the Goodness of God to preserve the Elect whether they were infants who died or older.
I know that my pastor and I had some disagreements about this. He felt that it was extra-Biblical. And it may be. I am not sure which way I fall on this.
The original question as I proposed it was, if all children are innocent, is God just to command the killing of those children when God commanded the Israelites to kill the infants of the Canaanites when the children of Israel entered into Canaan?
And is Romans 3 all inclusive as it seems to be or does "no, not one" not apply to children?
Romans 3:
For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. 10 As it is written:
“ There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
In Greek, οὐδέ/oude(no, not), is a negative disjunctive conjunction which reinforces and assentuates the negative of "εἷς/heis", a cardinal numeral of singularity, one, which is to say, the the negative is so reinforced as to mean not even one. It removes all possibility of even one being possible.
Do you believe that Cain is Adam’s biological son through intercourse with Eve? Yes or no?
I have answered that in no less than 7 posts of mine. Either you are NOT reading them or you are continuing to badger.
Now, since you have still not answered my original poser to you concerning the Romanist dogmas I have listed, which there is not one shred of patristic evidence for, which have been reposed twice more, and appear to not have any honest attempt to, then I will direct you to the answers I have already given, and will correctly identify your badgering as the continuance of the bullying attitude you yourself said you practiced most of your life.
And thus a just God can kill babies according to Calvinism.
This was my point.
:::Protestants recognize full well that Lucifer is rebellious, but that Lucifer, being subject to the Sovereignty of God cannot do anything which God does not allow. :::
This fits in very well with the Reformed doctrine, doesn’t it? Satan is an agent of the Reformed God. This must mean that the Reformed God is the origin of evil, since nothing that anyone does in a Calvinistic universe is not preordained by God.
This supports Kosta’s point.
:::Which is recorded in the Scriptures which can be the only sure standard, especially when it is clear that on issues of so called “tradition”, there were fathers who were in disagreement, and often contradicted the Scriptures.:::
But you don’t have the complete Scriptures. And many Protestant translations are suspect.
:::Protestants who hold to “sola scriptura” hold to a narrow path, holding that there are absolute truths knowable about God as revealed in the general revealtion of Creation, the special revelation of Scripture and in the specific revelation of the Incarnation.:::
Mystical mumbo jumbo. The path is many tens or hundreds of thousands of Protestants wide. If there were absolute truths knowable about God in your methodology, there path would only be one Protestant wide.
:::If you get any group of men together, they will agree on very little and disagree about a very lot. Just because you have some church fathers agreeing about any thing, you can be certain that some sort of compromise had to occur.:::
Then you may as well throw your Bible into the garbage; based upon your logic. That same group of Church Fathers amassed the Bible and declared what is Scriptural and what isn’t. That is why you don’t have the Gnostic gospels; the Gospel of James; the Protoevangelion and so on.
Either you accept the Church Fathers declaring and defining the doctrine and the word of God or else you don’t. You cannot pick and choose based upon an inner feeling or what you had for lunch.
It is more accurate to say Protestants don't obey Papal teaching simply because the Pope "said so".
Point, and counterpoint. Score goes to OLD REGGIE. Good show, old bean.
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